High drama in Tennessee begins Lindsey's night as she
closes up her restaurant. The deputy who escorts her to the
bank with her takings is assaulted by a youngster with a
stun gun. Lindsey should have run to phone for help, but
her instinctive reaction to rush to Deputy Jeff's aid gets
her immobilised and kidnapped in a car. She engineers a
driver error which crashes the car down a ravine - not the
best option, but at least the driver won't be taking her
anywhere.
Sure that the kidnap was planned, Lindsey, resilient from
her days as a stubborn battered child, puts her head
together with Jeff and they try to piece together the
reasons. She's on a crutch but she insists on opening her
restaurant in the town of Bell's Springs. The sheriff is
her brother-in-law and she has good support. But someone
from her past is not finished with her yet, and the small
town becomes more claustrophobic and sinister than she
could have believed. She has a suppressed MEMORY OF MURDER
and doesn't even know who the victim was - but someone
does.
If this tale had been set in a city, CCTV would have picked
up the bad guys immediately so a camera would have been
first on my shopping list. The amount of attacks on law
enforcement officers are surprising as was the amount of
times that Lindsey is glad that God had led her to this
town. Me, I'd have gone somewhere safe.
A lot of MEMORY OF MURDER is set in hospitals or police
interview rooms, so we don't see as much of the state of
Tennessee as I'd have liked. The romance element
necessarily takes second place to the safety of the people
concerned and their recovering in hospital beds, which they
do a lot, but Ramona Richards does flag the attraction from
the start of her tale so we are not too surprised when it
turns affectionate. Details of the current-day and cold
case police work are well supplied and EMT and rescue
procedures are also well explained. Less a romance and more
a tale of suspense, this adventure may appeal to those who
like off-beat crime stories.
Lindsey Presley certainly can't imagine why anyone would
want her dead—though she knows she wouldn't be alive today
if not for the local cop who saved her from two murder
attempts. Deputy Jeff Gage has worked difficult cases, but
with only Lindsey's fractured memories of a broken past to
guide him, this is by far his most challenging. For
Lindsey, fleeing the town she has come to call home is
unthinkable. Separately, they are vulnerable, but together,
Jeff and Lindsey just may stand a chance of catching a
ruthless killer.