Book Review: Fake Alibi by Leigh Russell

Blurb

A wheelchair-using woman is strangled and her son, Eddy, is arrested. When his alibi falls apart, the police are satisfied that he is guilty. Only Geraldine doubts whether Eddy is cunning enough to kill his mother and cover his tracks so successfully.

The situation becomes more complicated when the girlfriend Eddy claims he was with at the time of the murder denies having met him. Shortly after the girl thinks she is being stalked, her dead body is discovered outside Eddy’s house.

As the body count grows, the investigation team become confused, putting Geraldine under almost unbearable pressure.

Review

This is my first time reading any of the Geraldine Steel series. In a book series, I think the first main question to address is whether you need to read the previous books are not. The answer here is a straight no. Fake Alibi can easily be read as a stand-alone novel.

I liked Geraldine. Too often, authors of police dramas create the same leading characters: moody, possible recovering alcoholic, divorced, no life outside the force. It was nice to have a well-rounded, different type of character for a change.

The plot line of Fake Alibi was an entertaining albeit predictable one. While there was a few twists and turns to keep me on my toes, part (thankfully not all) of the ending was easy to guess about 75% of the way through. I also felt that the middle faltered a little bit. I loved the storyline focusing on Eddie’s girlfriend. It was dark and sinister. However, the overall book became focused more on Geraldine and her colleagues cracking the case which, in my opinion, took away from the story a bit. However, that is very much my personal opinion. I enjoy police dramas but I much prefer getting the story from the victim and their family or the culprit. A little more of that and I would have enjoyed Fake Alibi more.

Overall, I found Fake Alibi to be an easy, straightforward read. I became quite interested in Geraldine and I wouldn’t mind revisiting some of the older books to learn more about her. If you would also like to explore this character, you can pick up Fake Alibi here.

I was sent a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.