Shattered Sanctuary by Nancy Mehl Review

 

Oh wow, Shattered Sanctuary is a wonderful start to a new series by Nancy Mehl.  There is tons of suspense with a mystery to solve. Just who is the serial killer who is murdering women in the small town of Sanctuary. 

We get to see the story through four points of view. Erin Delaney, Kaely Quinn-Hunter, police chief Adrian Nightengale, plus the anonymous killer. If you recognize the name Kaely Quinn-Hunter, you may be just excited as I was when I realized she was going to be a major character in this book. I absolutely LOVED the author's Kaely Quinn Profiler series. While we have seen Kaely pop up in other books, in this book she plays just as important a roll as Erin does. We get a bit of an update on Kaely's life and then she joins Erin in the small town of Sanctuary. The plan was to have a relaxing time, getting to know each other better while helping Erin to deal with trauma from her past. What they weren't expecting was to be dragged into a murder case. It was actually a little weird that they were drawn in, seeing as neither of them were currently working as police or FBI agents. But with their backgrounds, the police chief was helping they could use their skills to help him solve the case before anyone else was murdered. 

The author kept me guessing right to the end as there were quite a few individuals that could have been the killer. I found the mystery of it quite compelling, especially because we got to get into the POV of the killer. And there were little hints and clues added to the story. The author also included a tale from the past that included a poem/rhyme that put the characters and my self on edge. The reader had to wonder what part the past murder was going to play on the story. 

I loved that we got to see Kaely in action again, and got to see her special type of profiling. Which can also get a bit creepy. If you haven't read the original Kaely Quinn Profiler series, you may want to start with that one, just to get to know Kaely better. Though other than that, this story can stand on it's own.

I also love that the author doesn't shy away from making the Gospel and faith an important part of the story. 

Oh, and there are a couple of cute dogs which are important to the storyline. Which always makes a book even better. 

The one thing I did struggle with a bit was the detailed desciptions which at times slowed the story down. That said, I still finished the book in a day as I was on the edge of my seat, zinging through pages, because the plot gripped me from the start. I needed to know who the killer was and couldn't put the book down. 

Definitely highly recommended.