The Last Place You Look

Finished January 18
The Last Place You Look by Kristen Lepionka, read by Allyson Ryan

This suspense novel is the first in a series featuring private detective Roxane Weary. Roxane is in bad shape as the book begins, still not really recovered from her father's death. Her dad was a police officer who was killed on duty. He was a gruff man, who drank too much and criticized a lot. Roxane doesn't really have fond memories of him, but his death has hit her hard, and she's been drinking too much too often. When one of her brothers refers someone to her to find a person who's been missing for more than a decade, she takes it only because she really needs the money.
But as she begins to research the case of the missing Sarah Cook, she finds other women in the area who've gone missing. The woman who hired her has a tight deadline, as her brother, Brad Stockton, is on death row for killing Sarah's parents and his date of death has been set for just a couple months away. Brad is black, and Sarah was white, so there is a possible racial element to this case as well.
The police in the suburban community near Columbus, Ohio, where Sarah and her parents lived actively dissuade Roxane from looking further into these disappearances, which really pisses her off.
I loved the character Roxane, as she's really interesting. She's smart, with great instincts for the work she does, but definitely has some problems on the personal side. She's made some questionable choices of partners (she's bisexual) and she resents her oldest brother as a goody-goody. She also thinks her mother put up with too much from her father. But she has definitely feelings for all her family members.
She also cares about the people she gets close to as a result of this case, as well as the victims. She puts herself in danger to try to help them, and she definitely has her share of bad luck. I look forward to reading more books featuring her.