Once You Go This Far is the fourth thrilling mystery from Shamus Award-winning and Anthony and Macavity Award-nominated author Kristen Lepionka. Junior-high school nurse Rebecca Newsome was an experienced hiker–until she plummeted to her death at the bottom of a ravine in a Columbus metro park. Her daughter, Maggie, doesn’t believe it was an accident, and Rebecca’s ex-husband is her prime … Rebecca’s ex-husband is her prime suspect. But he’s a well-connected ex-cop and Maggie is certain that’s the reason no one will listen to her. PI Roxane Weary quickly uncovers that the dead woman’s ex is definitely a jerk, but is he a murderer?
As she pieces together the days before Rebecca died, what Roxane finds doesn’t quite add up. From a series of trips to Detroit and across the border to a casino in Windsor, Canada, to strange calls from Rebecca’s home to a charismatic political candidate, to a women’s health organization, to a secretive church group that seems to have more information about its members than it should, Roxane needs to figure out how everything is connected before a dangerous secret gets someone else killed.
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The fourth in Lepionka’s Columbus-based series featuring private eye Roxane Weary, who extends her investigative reach in this latest installment to the Toledo and Detroit areas. It’s hard to choose among the four but this one is probably my favorite so far.
Big fan of this series and this one is no exception. Roxane Weary has evolved and so has her business. This case has a bit more flash to it than previous ones but she’s still the same flawed but compelling character who drinks too much and has trouble letting people get close. Love the local Columbus OH flair and of -the-times political slant.
The Roxane Weary series is a great one for fans of P.I. novels. In Once You Go This Far, the plot is compelling, with a lot of moving parts. Roxane is a fascinating character and I really enjoyed the supporting characters as well. In addition to the investigation, the forward movement in Roxane’s personal life is interesting and opens up some potential issues for the future. This is part of a series and I would recommend reading in order.
Content Warnings: SPOILERS homophobic slurs END SPOILERS
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC. The opinions in this review are honest and my own.
ONCE YOU GO THIS FAR by Kristen Lepionka is the fourth book in the Roxane Weary private investigator mystery series and the first book by this author that I have read. When Rebecca Newsome, an experienced hiker ends up falling, her daughter Maggie hires Roxanne Weary to investigate.
Roxanne makes an excellent protagonist. She has plenty of strengths but also a number of flaws that makes her more rounded as an individual. While this book worked as a standalone novel, I believe reading the series in order would provide more depth and background. The secondary characters enhanced the story. The story line was interesting with plenty of twists and turns. The prose was well-written, engaging and very readable. The plot was done well and the crime solving made sense and did not require the suspension of belief. However, one aspect at the end required a bit of a leap to get on the same page as Roxanne. I enjoyed piecing together all of the clues along with Roxanne.
Overall, this book was engaging, well-paced, complex and held my attention. If you enjoy this type of complex mystery, then this series may be for you. I am looking forward to reading more of this series.
Many thanks to St. Martin’s Press and Kristen Lepionka for a complimentary digital ARC of this novel via NetGalley and the opportunity to provide an honest review. Opinions are mine alone and are not biased in any way.
Private Investigator Roxane Weary takes on a case she thinks should be easy. A middle-school nurse, Rebeca Newsome, was found dead near a hiking trail. Everyone but Newsome’s daughter believes Rebecca’s death was a tragic accident. The daughter believes her mother was killed most probably by her father, and she wants Roxie to prove it. However, for every rock Roxie turns over, there are more questions. Roxane follows every new lead, but all she finds are new pieces to a puzzle that is turning out to be much bigger than she – or anyone else – thought it was.
This is the fourth book in this outstanding series. But you need not have read the first three books in the series to become engrossed in this complex and well-written mystery. There is only a reference to events from the first three books that remains unexplained here, but it is minor and doesn’t affect the outcome. Lepionka does bring back a con artist, Leila Hassan, whose lies Roxie believed in a previous book, “What You Want to See,” but thinks she just may be telling the truth in this book – or has she been conned again by this woman?
Roxie is strong woman protagonist who is intelligent, erudite, and complex. The book is set in Ohio, but Roxie’s leads have her traveling far afield from her home base. The writing is outstanding and the plotting multifaceted and will keep you reading into the early hours of the morning.
This is an outstanding entry in an award-winning series and Lepionka’s fans will not be disappointed. If you’re one of those who won’t start a series anywhere but with book one, run to your nearest Indie bookstore and get the first book in the series, “The Last Place You Look,” now.
My thanks to Minotaur and Edelweiss for an eARC.