#BookReview – “Deathscape” by Dana Marton

Blurb

After a near-death experience, artist Ashley Price is compelled to paint visions of the dead, and fears she's gone crazy. Then she paints a man buried alive and, recognizing the surroundings, she rushes to save him.

Instead of being grateful to her for rescuing him, Detective Jack Sullivan accuses her of being in league with a serial killer. He swears he will put her behind bars. Except, the more time he spends with her, the more he falls under her spell. Can he trust her, or is he walking into another deadly trap? 

Review

In the second Broslin Creek novel, Detective Jack Sullivan is hunting a serial killer and gets too close to the killer’s comfort. Trapped, kidnapped, and tortured, Jack is buried alive in the snowy woods and left for dead.

After a near-death experience a year earlier, artist Ashley Price longs for a normal life. She has visions of dead people, which send her into a trance. The only way she can get the images out of her head is to paint them. Due to her mental instability, she’s given her dad custody of her adorable daughter, but she’s determined to get better so she can bring her daughter home. One night, a vision hits and she paints it as usual. But this time, when she breaks free from the trance, she realizes the victim in the painting isn’t dead. He’s still alive, and she recognizes the scenery as part of her property. She goes out looking and finds Jack near death. But Jack isn’t all that grateful to her for saving him. He’s convinced she’s working with the serial killer, and he’ll do anything to prove it.

This is a good mystery, crime-fiction story, and I didn’t figure out who was the killer until late in the book. Both Jack and Ashley have serious baggage and trust issues. There was very little romance between them, at least until maybe ¾ of the book. I couldn’t connect with either of them. Though I understood their motivations behind their actions, their stubbornness and animosity towards one another made it hard for me to root for them.

The time line seemed off from the last book. It’s either been one year, two years, or a few years from the previous one. Kate and Murph, the previous book’s couple, weren’t in this one and they weren’t mentioned either, but Captain Bing played a big role. The local police captain tied the two books together.

Overall, I liked the murder mystery part, but I wish there would’ve been more romance between the H/h.

3 Stars