Mysterious Reviews, mysteries reviewed by the Hidden Staircase Mystery Books, is publishing a new review of Blood Island by H. Terrell Griffin. For our blog readers, we are printing it first here in advance of its publication on our website.
Blood Island by H. Terrell Griffin
A Matt Royal Mystery
Oceanview Publishing (Hardcover)
ISBN-10: 1-933515-21-X (193351521X)
ISBN-13: 978-1-933515-21-2 (9781933515212)
Publication Date: December 2008
List Price: $24.95
Review: Matt Royal follows the trail of his ex-wife's missing stepdaughter Peggy to a mysterious island in the south Florida keys in Blood Island, the third mystery in this series by H. Terrell Griffin.
Matt's initial inquiries into the girl's disappearance are met with a surprising response: someone tries to kill him. Rather than being a deterrent, it prompts the opposite response from Matt. Nothing short of putting him six feet under is going to stop him now. Everything he learns seems to point to Key West as the key (as it were) to solving the mystery. He heads there undercover and soon locates Peggy on an isolated private island with a storied history, Blood Island. But before he can get her to safety, she tells him of a mysterious plot to blow people up, and that the island's owner is behind it. In a race against time, Matt uses every resource available to stop what may be start of the next world war.
Readers who seek fast and furious action in their mysteries need look no further than Blood Island. A cozy it most certainly is not. Matt is a fearless protagonist, but also strategic. He knows when he needs help and his buddies are willing and able to be there when he calls. Somewhat ironically, though, the plot is at its strongest when Matt is on his own in Key West searching for Peggy. It's here that the disparate pieces to the puzzle start to come together and the narrative is more foreboding and atmospheric. Still, the relentless pace and ever increasing body count don't quite disguise the occasional lapse in logic, but that's almost certainly not the primary objective of Blood Island. For a mystery that means to entertain its reader, it does that and more in spades.
Special thanks to Oceanview Publishing for providing a copy of Blood Island for this review.
Review Copyright © 2009 — Hidden Staircase Mystery Books — All Rights Reserved.
If you are interested in purchasing Blood Island from Amazon.com, please click the button to the right.
Synopsis (from the publisher): Matt Royal never has to look far for excitement. Excitement -- and sometimes trouble -- has a way of finding him first. But for this fun-loving lawyer turned beach bum, things are about to get serious. Dead serious.
When his ex-wife asks for help in tracking down her stepdaughter, last seen in Matt’s hometown of Longboat Key, Matt agrees to do a little searching.
But what looks like the case of one missing girl turns out to be something much bigger -- and much more dangerous.
Enlisting the aid of his buddies Jock Algren and Logan Hamilton, Matt launches a full-speed-ahead search that leads from Longboat Key to Key West to an ominous strip of land called Blood Island.
But this is no island paradise. Blood Island is home base to a cult of religious zealots. And they’re making devastating plans that could change the world forever.
Bullets fly, and as the clock ticks down, it will be up to Matt to make sure that what happens on Blood Island stays on Blood Island.
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