The Texas Murder Files series has come full circle. Hidden (2020) introduced us to Austin investigative reporter Bailey Rhoads and detective Jacob Merritt. From the police scanner, Bailey gets wind of a murder—she comes to believe it was an assassination. The protagonists are on opposite sides of the fence, but ultimately, they work together to…
In the latest Texas Murder Files thriller, Laura Griffin spotlights the conflict between personal desire and professional imperatives. Barista Leyla Breda meets undercover FBI agent Sean Moran at her brother Joel’s wedding to Miranda (Midnight Dunes). Leyla owns the popular Island Beanery, but she’s expanded her fledging empire to include catering. Siena, her catering assistant,…
Laura Griffin is an expert guide to the uncomfortable tension between doing one’s job and having a personal life. In the island community of Lost Beach, Texas, navigating tricky conflicts of interest comes with the territory. It’s another gritty and imaginative romantic thriller in the Griffin canon. Midnight Dunes is the third in Laura Griffin’s…
Austin attorney Leigh Larson is the lawyer of choice for “victims of sexual extortion, harassment, and online abuse.” Last Seen Alone could not be more topical as October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. The plot lives up to the cliché, “ripped from the headlines,” since the news is flush with tragic stories of women killed…
Laura Griffin delivers topical stories, deserving of the accolade “ripped from the headlines.” Her characters are intelligent and detail-oriented, constantly sifting through impressions and facts to arrive at sound conclusions. Set in the fictional Texas coastal town of Lost Beach, Flight is a romantic thriller, in which Griffin masterfully balances the elements of attraction and…
Investigative reporters are akin to ambulance-chasing lawyers, their ear next to the ground so they don’t miss any breaking stories. In an era where jobs in journalism are precarious, there’s an urgency to be the one, on the regular, who ferrets out what police would prefer to stay hidden. Austin, Texas based reporter Bailey Rhoads…
We see it all the time in suspense fiction. The good guy takes down the villain and does some variation of riding off into the sunset, such as setting sail in the Caribbean (The Firm), slipping quietly into Mexico (The Shawshank Redemption) or beginning a new life in obscurity (The Town). But in the digital…
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One of the ongoing debates in most romance reading circles is the specific answer to one question: What differentiates a romantic suspense from a romantic thriller? The answer is different depending on who you ask, but as far as I’m concerned, it boils down to the scope of the story. Romantic thrillers are filled with…
Twisted by Laura Griffin is a novel of romantic suspense and part of the “Tracers” series (available April 17). Laura Griffin’s “Tracers” series is more a set of interconnected novels that a traditional series. She has a cast of characters that sometimes relate to each other as they solve cases, but each novel can stand…
