Malevolent (Shaye Archer Series)

Shaye Archer moved to New Orleans to open her own private investigator office. She’s young and has limited criminal investigative expertise, but she’s determined to help others heal after tragedy. … Emma is no stranger to tragedy. Her husband David served in Iran, but upon his return he was a changed man. Emma knew she had to defend herself against him. Now after David’s death someone is after her. The police don’t believe her so she hired Shaye. This is Shaye’s first case as a private investigator. Solving this case will help build a reputation amongst law enforcement that she’s capable for someone young and limited. … Jana DeLoan writes a fantastic book about Shaye. This is book one in the series. It’s a great beginning into the life of Shaye as a private investigator who is haunted by her own past. In the upcoming books readers will have more answers regarding Shaye’s past. … Julie McKay is the solo female performer who is the voice of Shaye. There’s no better way to enjoy a book of this type than with a great voice actor performing the words the way they were meant to be read. I’m an eyes and ears person who requires both the ebook and audiobook to enhance my experience. Together with good writing and good voice talent a book is just words on a page until an actor comes along and puts those words into action.m

I really enjoyed trying to unravel the crazy history with Emma’s late husband and who was after her. I will say that the twists that did end up happening in the story were pretty wild. It definitely kept it interesting, but I also felt like there were a few character endings that were a bit too convenient. The ending felt like a lot was packed into a small part of the book but I was satisfied with the conclusion. I look forward to finding out more about Shaye in the rest of the series.

This was a fairly run-of-the-mill mystery with a serial killer/ stalker, whose motives were never fully examined or understood. The author did a good job developing many of the characters and they were likeable and mostly realistic. I didn't find some of the action scenes to be likely or believable...ditto for the character's back stories. I found it unlikely that a police department would allow two detectives to do nothing in the way of working criminal cases, simply because one of them was lazy and near retirement. Not only that, but the younger, eager partner was forced to sneak around, if he wanted to do any detective work, simply because the senior partner didn't want to leave his desk during their shifts. Surely the New Orleans PD wouldn't force an eager detective to do no work, because his partner is fat and lazy. I don't buy it. There were a few other things that just didn't make sense. This isn't a bad book....but there are a lot out there that are much better. The stalking theme made it more interesting, but how it was done, was not really possible unless there were some super powers, that remained hidden from the reader. Too many plausibility issues and unexplained loose ends for my taste.