"That wonderful and rare combination of high-speed suspense and complex, richly drawn characters will keep you on the edge of your seat."—Jeffery Deaver, New York Times bestselling author
19 Souls is one terrific read. With a great plot, engaging characters, and a crackling voice, this book has everything. I dare you to put it down after you start reading."—John Gilstrap, New York Times bestselling author
"The setup is so good, and the characters so hard to look away from...All in all, a fine thriller."—Booklist
"Twisty, authentic, and constantly surprising! JD Allen nails her debut with this top-notch thriller—it's gritty, smart and irresistible."—Hank Phillippi Ryan, nationally bestselling author
"Overall, a must read for thriller fans and perhaps the best PI story we have read this year so far."—Mystery Tribune
"Her plotting and pacing will keep you up long after Proust and Henry James have rocked you to sleep. Stay tuned for a series that promises many, many more troubled dreams."—Kirkus Reviews
"Bean's inner and outer dialogue is quick, snappy, and authentic to the profession. The pace is earnest, as leads, tips, and information eventually congeal into answers; final pages are highly suspenseful and dramatic. 19 Souls introduces a memorable PI, grappling with a past he's not reconciled to."—Foreword Reviews
"This is an unflinchingly gritty tale, wonderfully written and wholly satisfying."—Bolo Books
2017-10-10
A Las Vegas private eye tangles with a jezebel as resourceful as she is murderous in this scorchingly one-dimensional series kickoff.Worried that her brother, Dan, has run off with the nest egg needed to keep their Alzheimer's-stricken mother, Lynette, ensconced in the Silver Hills nursing home, Cynthia Hodge directs Jim Bean, of Sin City Investigations: "Don't contact him. Just find him." The catch is that Jim's client isn't really Cindy Hodge; she's Sophie Ryan Evers, a femme fatale whose crush on Dan, nurtured ever since her preteen years, is coupled with a decidedly sociopathic personality that's already led her to kill 11 people—12 if you count Cindy. In the most pleasingly original part of this tale, its rapid-fire first movement, Jim works every lead he can think of to find Dan Hodge, who seems to have vanished seven years ago after dropping out of college to become a rodeo rider, while his client follows him, second-guesses him, seduces him, and generally plots rings around him. Once Jim catches up with Dan, who quickly disillusions him about the true identity of his client, the story settles into an altogether more familiar groove: Jim teams up with fellow private eye Oscar Olsen and FBI agent Ava Webb to move the surviving Hodges into a safe house Sophie promptly identifies, then both sides hunker down for an extended cat-and-mouse game whose only certainty is foretold in the novel's title, which announces the final body count.Allen can't write a memorable sentence to save her life, but her plotting and pacing will keep you up long after Proust and Henry James have rocked you to sleep. Stay tuned for a series that promises many, many more troubled dreams.