Close to Home

Author: Robert Dugoni
Genre: Suspense
Type: e-book
Source: NetGalley
Series: #5 in the Tracy Crosswhite series
Publisher: Thomas and Mercer
First Published: September 5, 2017
First Line: "D'Andre Miller pushed open the glass doors of the Rainier Beach Community Center and stepped out into the frigid night."

Book Description from GoodReads: While investigating the hit-and-run death of a young boy, Seattle homicide detective Tracy Crosswhite makes a startling discovery: the suspect is an active-duty serviceman at a local naval base. After a key piece of case evidence goes missing, he is cleared of charges in a military court. But Tracy knows she can’t turn her back on this kind of injustice.

When she uncovers the driver’s ties to a rash of recent heroin overdoses in the city, she realizes that this isn’t just a case of the military protecting its own. It runs much deeper than that, and the accused wasn’t acting alone. For Tracy, it’s all hitting very close to home.

As Tracy moves closer to uncovering the truth behind this insidious conspiracy, she’s putting herself in harm’s way. And the only people she can rely on to make it out alive might be those she can no longer trust.


Disclaimer: My sincere thanks to Thomas and Mercer for providing me with a complimentary e-book copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

My Rating: 3.5 stars

My Review: The Tracy Crosswhite series is one of my go-to series when I want edge-of-your-seat scenes and a solid main character who has just enough baggage, humour, stubbornness, courage and back-up to get the job done.

The series features Tracy Crosswhite, a homicide detective in the Violent Crimes division of the Seattle police force. Close to Home, the fifth installment of the series, is a multi-layered story that focuses on the hit-and-run of a child and the heroin epidemic. 

Dugoni gives readers a lot to think about and balances the emotional affects of losing a loved one to drugs with a no-holds-barred look at street drugs. He brings up several interesting, and sometimes controversial, topics including the benefits of free clinics as safe injection sites for addicts to decrease the risk of overdosing and how the legalization of marijuana has caused drastic change in the drugs that are readily available on the street. These issues add much to the plot and their ramifications are far more complicated than I had ever imagined. 

This gritty plot line gets personal as readers witness how the overdosing of his niece has greatly affected Del Castigliano, one of Tracy's fellow homicide detectives. Del takes the reigns for much of the book and his grief over his niece was touching and gave his character depth. I also enjoyed the introduction of Celia McDaniel - she's an intelligent, strong woman who adds much to Del's story line. While Tracy shares the spotlight this time out, her personal life, though touching, didn't grab me quite as much and I fear how this plot line will influence future books.

I wouldn't say that this book grabbed me as much as others in the series but it was still a solid read. I'm not a big fan of military story lines and while the view into the Navy and JAG added something different, the military legal plot line fell a little flat for me. I also had issues with the fact that Del would be allowed to work on his niece's case - I can't see that ever happening, staffing issues or not, buuuut it's fiction and Del's story line was my favourite of the bunch.

This is a twisty, multi-layered suspense read that brings the issue of addiction and drugs to the forefront while giving readers a look into the Navy's hierarchy and its JAG system. If you're looking for a great series with strong characters and some edge-of-your-seat, twisty action then I highly recommend this series.

Note: While these books can be read as stand-alones I'd recommend reading them in order or at least reading My Sister's Grave first to understand where Tracy's emotional scars come from.