Cover Image: The Body in the Pool

The Body in the Pool

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Member Reviews

Wow, The Body in the Pool was quite entertaining.

The book set in Seattle is in for a shock as white males are being murdered. It's now up to Detective Spencer Thomas to solve the mysteries. With a pregnant wife on bed rest, brass that strips his resources, and the FBI breathing down his neck…the last thing Spence needs is a dead body at an exclusive boarding school, floating in their pool no less…

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A good paced detective story. Believable characters and set up. Enjoyed the home atmosphere as well as the working story.

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"The Body in the Pool" by T.A. Henry

My first time reading that author.

4 stars.

Well written crime cop story, interesting read, fast paced, not boring. Good plot, interesting characters.
Short and easy to read, you don't want to put it down.

What first caught my eye and made me want to pick up that book was the title.

ARC received through NetGalley. This is my honest review. All opinions are my own.

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Nothing too exciting here, although it was a solid cop story. The characters were well developed, but the story line was pretty predictable and while much of the dialogue was ok, it didn't sparkle. Thanks for the read.

#TheBodyInThePool #NetGalley

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Fist time reading this author and found the novel to be much better than I expected. A police procedural about a serial killer in Seattle introduces interesting characters and their relationships so I’m expecting a second volume. More realistic street dialogue than most and an intriguing mystery/thriller.

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I was first interested in the book by the title, for what mystery lover isn’t pulled into a title like that? This is an interesting storyline about a private school, Whispering Evergreen Academy, where a school board member is found dead in the school’s pool. This book featured a good cast of characters. It is a police procedural with a bit of sarcasm and smirks. As this is a series, and this book ended with a bit of a cliffhanger, I look forward to reading the next book in this new series.

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This fast paced mystery is a good start for a new series. The characters are a bit cliched and that's part of the enjoyment. There is humor to go with the procedural parts making for a great balance. My only real complaint is there isn't much about the actual case the series is named for. This is a shorter book at 185 pages but the author manages to pack a lot into them without it feeling rushed. I'm looking forward to more books.

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T. A. Henry got hooked on novel writing during NaNoWriMo, an author challenge that asks someone to go from an idea to a 50,000 word publishable novel in 30 days. Always done in November, this challenge has produced some gems. Henry, a self-published author, takes the rest of the year to polish and beta test her novel prior to publishing.

The Body in the Pool is set in Seattle. It starts as a procedural with a task force assigned to track and arrest a serial killer. The team is quick to discern this murder is a copy cat. The body is found on the grounds of Whispering Evergreen Academy. Home to the scions of the rich of Seattle, the Academy is highly protective of its reputation. This does not stop Spence and Tom, the lead detectives on the task force. What does stop Spence is a misjudgement on Tom's part. His mistake leads to his suspension, causing increased tension for the Spence and the rest of the team.

In addition, Spence's pregnant wife is on bed rest, and if bored almost to tears. She is a successful baker who is fretting over losing clients. She is able to bake her way into helping the team. The story moves along smoothly giving a fairly accurate portrayal of modern police methods.

A good reliable contemporary mystery.

Full disclosure: I received this e-book from netgalley.com in exchange for an unbiased review.

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My Review:

Overall: 3.5 out of 5 Stars

Cover: 2 out of 5 Stars

***Disclaimer: These views are my own opinion. I will always recommend people to read the novel and form their own opinion.

Wow. Okay, just wow. What can I not say about the absolute nostalgia of this book? It reminded me of nothing more than a Law & Order, CSI: Miami or Criminal Minds mash-up. And you know what? That's what I absolutely adored about it!

As an avid lover of Chris Noth as Mike Logan and Jerry Orbach as Lenny Briscoe (of course David Caruso as Horatio Caine) I enjoyed this book for the sheer nostalgia.

The plot is pretty straight forward. Body gets found in a pool facedown, missing a piece of his anatomy. A team of detectives gets called in to investigate the possibility of a serial killer re-emerging after what appears to be a state of dormancy(?) I didn't exactly understand if that was what the author was going for. Anyway, the interactions of the police officers made me laugh at times, especially when one of them had a pregnant wife to content with.

All in all, it really did remind me of the humor one might find in your average cop show.

Now, while I adored this book for its humor and entertainment value, I must point out that it is okay to eliminate the "forced dialogue" and humor. Some of it went too far, and dragged on. At times there was just too much police lingo and some of the interactions felt beyond forced. I found myself actually getting the "enough already, please" vibe in many cases.

The absolute lack of conflict made the story seem boring in some parts. At least in Law & Order, Mike Logan gets a chance to slap a guy around.

The characters seemed too cliche (perhaps that was the point since this was a humor?) but I rolled my eyes in a few places.

As far as the cover, I didn't get the tension. I didn't get the story. I wanted to understand what I was going to read before reading the description.

However, I did indeed enjoy this read. The author definitely has my attention and I will gladly read upcoming titles from them.

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I decided to pick this book up on purely the title "The body in the pool" and the fact that the description mentioned a "serial killer" . After years of obsessively following police procedural thriller shows such as Criminal Minds & Law & Order I assumed this book will be right up my alley. And I was wrong - but just partly.
Detective Spencer Thomas and his team are on trail of the ever elusive "Dismember" killer who's currently terrorizing the city of Seattle. This book follows the team's journey as they make their way through seemingly another of Dismember's murderous attacks. This book is dark, gritty and has the kind of gore I've come to like. I love the characters, the plot, the dialogues. With mere 185 pages of thrilling content, this book is fast-paced and doesn't bother with many minor trivialities (which may not work for some people).
The only grouse was that I didn't see as much of Dismember as I'd hoped to. But then there's always the hope for more in the next of this exciting series!
I look forward to reading more of Spencer and will recommend this book to anyone who's looking for a fast-paced murder mystery.
Thank you Netgalley, T. A Henry and Independent Book Publishers Association for an arc.

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This is an excellent police procedural with a great plot. Compact, easy to read and with pretty realistic dialogue. Very interesting characters that you will really get to know.

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THE BODY IN THE POOL introduces Detective Spencer Thomas and his team. The Dismember Killer has already taken 12 lives of men.

The higher-ups are already tasking Thomas to find this killer ... and he and his team are working full out trying to find something ... anything that points to a suspect. This killer leaves no clues, no DNA, no motive for what he does.

The last thing he needs at this moment is to have a body found in the pool at an exclusive boarding school. His pregnant wife has been ordered to bed, and now the FBI are walking all over his case.

There's a lot of action which kept me riveted to the story. The characters are finely drawn and I was surprised by the ending.

Warning -- there's a bit of a cliff hanger, but I understand the second book in the series, THE BODY IN THE PRECINCT, will be out soon.

Many thanks to the author / Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA) / Netgalley for the advanced digital copy of this crime fiction. Opinions expressed here are unbiased and entirely my own.

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