BY ANY MEANS BY CHRIS CULVER - REVIEW

pic and description taken from Goodreads

Description:

At the end of a particularly grueling summer day, Ash is heading home to his wife and kids when he discovers a pair of bodies, shot execution style, in the front seat of a crashed vehicle. As the first officer on the scene, Ash finds himself and his department 20 minutes behind a killer in a race where every second counts. With two victims down and a third unaccounted for, the clock is ticking and Ash must find the killer before he strikes again.

My Review / Thoughts:

Ash is a cop who has been doing D.A.R.E. meetings instead of walking the beat for a while.  When driving home he comes upon a car crash.  When he goes to inspect the vehicle he sees two bodies in it.  His day gets much worse after that.

Ash has made some choices as a cop and aligned himself with some not so good people, but that has allowed him to put some even worse people in jail.  He seems to think it's a good trade off.  As long as he is able to put bad guys away he doesn't see any harm in working with a known criminal.

Kostya Bukoholov is a bad guy.  Plain and simple.  He finds out that his daughter has been killed and goes into action.   He is willing to do whatever it takes to bring his daughters murderer to justice.  He has not qualms about stepping outside the lines of "legal" means.  Like I said he is a bad guy.  He gets results.  I will give him that.  As a mother, I think I can totally see where he is coming from.  I would hope I had the control to let the authorities take care of it, but when my kids are in trouble my "mad momma bear" kicks in.  I am a little irrational.  hehe!  I think Kostya is the same way.  Just on a much deeper level.  He has dealt with evil many times.

The way things unwind in this book are so great.  I thought Ash was a great character.  He loved his wife.  I think that is probably why I liked him so much.  In the book even when he is having a really bad day, he always thinks about his wife, and does all he can for his family.  It's such a nice change from all the bad father/guy stories out there.

Ash is a great detective.  He thinks about things that others don't and is sometimes willing to step outside the "line" to get results.  

I have often wondered if I would be able to handle being married to a Police Man.  I would be terrified every day that they wouldn't come home.  Ash had a way of getting himself into situations, because he is unwilling to accept defeat.  

It seemed like when one thing was on the verge of being resolved another element entered and made it more exciting.  While the pieces come together it made me sit on the edge of my seat waiting to see what was going to happen.  

The lengths that Ash goes to, to find a missing girl make you really root for him as a detective.  Even if he is working and getting his information from "bad guy" Bukoholov.  He knows someone is in trouble, and he will go to any lengths (even out of his jurisdiction) to solve the mystery.

If you like mystery, and detective stories, this book is a good one to pick up.  It's an intriguing story with twists and turns, that kept me guessing.  I really enjoy that :).

Source:  Thanks Netgalley and Grand Central Publishing for allowing me to review this novel.  It was such a great read.  I was not compensated in any way for this review, these are my own PERSONAL thoughts on the book.

My Rating:

Where to Buy:

Amazon * Barnes & Noble

About the Author:

Pic and bio taken from Goodreads

Chris Culver is the New York Times bestselling author of the Ash Rashid series of mysteries. After graduate school, Chris taught courses in ethics and comparative religion at a small liberal arts university in southern Arkansas. While there and when he really should have been grading exams, he wrote The Abbey, which spent sixteen weeks on the New York Times bestseller's list and introduced the world to Detective Ash Rashid.

Chris has been a storyteller since he was a kid, but he decided to write crime fiction after picking up a dog-eared, coffee-stained paperback copy of Mickey Spillane's I, the Jury in a library book sale. Many years later, his wife, despite considerable effort, still can't stop him from bringing more orphan books home. The two of them, along with a labrador retriever named Roy, reside near St. Louis where Chris is hard at work on his next novel.