Book Review: The Legacy by Gary M Gusick

Disclosure / Disclaimer: I received this product, free of charge,from Random House, via Netgalley, for review purposes on this blog. No other compensation, monetary or in kind, has been received or implied for this post. Nor was I told how to post about it,  all opinions are my own.

Carl Hiaasen meets Lisa Gardner in Gary Gusick's edgy, irresistible Darla Cavannah series! In The Legacy, a college coed's murder exposes deadly tensions tearing through the Deep South.


the legacy cover


Synopsis:


When the governor of Mississippi requests her help, Yankee transplant Darla Cavannah can hardly say no—even if the timing couldn't be worse. She and her dreamy husband, Dr. Stephen Nicoletti, have just been approved to adopt a baby girl in China, and getting wrapped up in a high-profile homicide will almost certainly complicate, if not derail, all their plans. But as Governor Wilson Burnett relays the details of the case, Darla feels deep sympathy—and blinding outrage at a promising life cut short.


On the campus of prestigious Ole Miss, a young African American student has been found killed just hours after her initiation into a previously segregated sorority. The murder would be shocking under any circumstances, but this student is Caitlin Burnett—the white governor's adopted daughter.


With public outrage building and media coverage intensifying, Darla's partner, Rita Gibbons, proves invaluable. Her deep roots in the community—or “trailer trash cred”—helps considerably as the crime-solving pair sift fact from fiction. If this murder was racially motivated, why does the most damning evidence appear to have been staged? As the trail leads from Caitlin's fellow Delta Betas to radical white supremacists and her father's political enemies, the detectives close in on the disturbing truth—and a devious manipulator pulling all the strings.

Review:

Review: I love Gary's Cavvnah series not just for a strong female lead who can see outside the box, and who works outside the 'system', but because he's 'local'. Gusick writes about the Jackson, MS area, which we know well (the kid's dance troop was up there this weekend for their Celyoutic Fest!), and he writes about it correctly- there is no sighing and moaning when an author get's the area wrong, with Gusick, you know you're getting a good story, becuase the SETTING is right. This time Gusick takes the reader to Ol Miss and gets the idioms and local tales right, so you know you about to get a great mystery, that will have you rapidly turning the pages, and it does. Cavannaugh is now remarried, and trying to adopt a child, and she is starting to see things differently. Combined with her experience, the result is a police procedural that reads 'right'. It's a story that will have you running back to read the previous book in the series, and looking forward to see where the dominoes fall in the next book too! I highly recommend it, it might just make you want to take a trip to Mississippi!

About the Author:

Gary Gusick is a former advertising executive with more than thirty years experience as a copywriter and creative director. He is a winner of numerous national and international awards for creative excellence in advertising. The Last Clinic was his first novel in the Cavannaugh series, Officer Elvis was the second.



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