Lilly James had left her home and twin sister, Magnolia, to start a new life far away in Beaumont Cove with her boyfriend/now husband, Mike. It had not been a happy leave-taking; she and Maggie had had a horrible argument about Mike and had not spoken since. Mike was an abuser, and Maggie knew he would never change. She’d gone out on a limb to get Lilly away from him, but her sister actually believed that things were getting better, that she could talk him down from his violence, and all they needed was to get away. So when she got the tragic call from Beaumont County Sheriff Parks, Maggie knew Mike had finally killed her sister.

Maggie arrives in the small, almost deserted coastal town to identify her sister’s body and goes to see Mike in jail, where he claims he did not murder Lilly. He begs Maggie, who works as a private investigator in their hometown, to find the real killer. But Maggie is completely closed to his pleas and doesn’t believe a word of it. She heads over to the couple’s apartment at the Orion, a rundown, long-stay motel, to pick up her mother’s jewelry box, which Lilly had taken when she’d skipped town with Mike. Unable to find the jewelry box or any of her mother’s things among Lilly’s effects, and with the uneasy feeling that all is not right with the creepy and socially awkward maintenance man, Thomas, Maggie begins to question the reported details of Lilly’s last days and death.

Broken was an exciting, surprise-filled yet and moody story that kept me feeling off-balance all the way to the end. I never knew what would happen next even though the reader knows the how and why of Lilly’s death. The town of Beaumont Cove is so well imagined I could see and hear and feel the place. It is a summer destination and deserted at the time of the story – the cold and dark a part of the characters’ experiences, and the reader’s as well. Some nice, friendly local people inhabit the atmospheric location, but it made me doubt their trustworthiness. Can these good people really exist in this out-of-the-way, dark, forgotten place? The lead characters are strong and determined, albeit one is absolutely insane.

I recommend BROKEN to readers of thrillers and suspense novels, and those that enjoy a well-told mystery that is not a “who-done-it” but rather a “will-they-get-away-with-it” story.