While planning a romantic Valentine's Day with her boyfriend, a woman leaves her place of work, only to be found dead in the school parking lot.  Constable J D Temple is investigating and has very little to go on, other than a Valentine's card.

Meanwhile, a toddler has gone missing while the parents were hosting a dinner party.  First suspects are the parents .. in this case, the mother and step-father.  The child's father is called and he is stating that his ex-wife has taken the child and hidden her.  The mother is stating that the father sneaked in and took her.

Constables Dion and Leith have taken charge of the missing child case and with no witnesses, or any leads, they are hoping this will be a case of a child being taken by a childless woman.

It's when they all find a small connection to each other, that the cases merge into something bigger than imagined ... and more bodies fall.

It's a complex plot with cleverly inserted twists and turns that are fascinating.  Suspects are varied ... and many.  It's always fun to see how the police follow every little clue ... and Dion always comes at a case entirely different from Leith.  Their relationship .. both personal and professional ... is a large part of the story.  A new colleague is introduced .. and there may be some problems coming.  The ending is unexpected with just a tad of a cliffhanger which will be the start of FIVE WAYS TO DISAPPEAR ...  out 4/21.

Although 5th in the series, this is easily read as a stand alone.  However, I do recommend reading the books in order.

Many thanks to the  author / Dundern Press / Netgalley for the digital copy of this crime fiction/police procedural.  Read and reviewed voluntarily, opinions expressed here are unbiased and entirely my own.

I haven't read the previous books in this series and I didn't feel lost. I love these kind of mysteries where you can start really with any book. Greenaway did a great job of creating a great, entangled mystery and characters who you can get behind.

In R.M. Greenaway's River of Lies, the 5th installment in the B.C. Blues Crime thriller series,  this startling tale had a bit of deep overtones that tugs at the heart. It's February, the most romantic month of the year, that's filled with romance and love and promises. But for Detectives Cal Dion and Dave Leith at the RCMP, it's nothing but that, when they were assigned on another case. It all started with a tragic death of a elementary school's janitor. While they worked that angle, a call for a missing child approached their desks. From there, it landed on a bunch of tangled up lies and deceit in the midst of a custody case between two parents. In the midst of the all is the children, when one's withdrawn from the world, and later takes his life in his own hands at his young age. From there, they discover what really happened and what went wrong, when another child's caught in the crossfire of heated argument. Lo and behold, they pieced the together the biggest mystery of it all. Is the child still alive or buried to hide the fact of an accidental death? When they clinched the two cases together to form this big and darkened mystery, they learned a whole lot of twists and turns that would love you shocked in the end with a gripping climax.

Well written tense love the Vancouver setting.Start to a new series I will be following.Characters came alive chilling moments kept me turning the pages.#netgalley#dundrenbooks

This is the first in R.M. Greenaway’s BC Blues crime series that I have read and there is a fairly large crew of characters to absorb. Among these are the various members of the local police, the RCMP, with detectives Leith and Dion in the forefront.

The novel opens with a assault outside a school building as an employee leaves work in the evening. Shortly thereafter the same answering detectives, Leith and Dion are called to a river side dwelling to investigate a reported missing child. This situation is complicated by split families, ex-husband and wife, complicated custody agreements, etc. Finding truth will be equally complex.

This is the continuation of a series which, at times, can leave the situation among the men and women investigating these crimes a bit confusing, but it does not make it difficult to read in and of itself. Perhaps the odd imbalance in the treatment of the two crimes and the use of coincidences are my biggest issues with the plotting. Still it has been exciting to read with some well done action scenes that had me wondering about possible outcomes.

3.5* rounded to 4*

A copy of this book was provided by Dundurn through NetGalley in return for an honest review.

River of Lies by R.M. Greenaway is the fifth book in the B.C. Blues Crime series. The novel takes place mainly in North Vancouver, Canada. It worked as a stand-alone novel for me, but I believe reading the previous books would help fill some holes and be more enjoyable for the reader.

I felt this was really well written. It took a little bit to get into the characters, but they were well developed and complex. I really like the plot, however, there were lots of "extras" that were not needed and did not add anything to the story. 

Thank you to Dundurn Press via NetGalley for providing a digital advanced copy of the book for my honest review.

Great book!
Excellent main character and supporting cast.
Evocative, thoughtful writing. Well paced and absorbing.

My standard question, reading a book that's part of a series: does this work as a standalone?

Ehhhh, parts do?

It's February in Vancouver, and against a backdrop of the build-up to Valentine's Day, murder and kidnap is everywhere. A young woman's body is discovered in the parking lot of the school she works at, and on the same night a young girl vanishes from her home. A tenuous link is made between the two cases, but further bodies pile up. 

The cases themselves can be read as a standalone, however there is a lot of backstory happening among the police characters that would definitely be better understood having read previous books in the series. This book also ends in a way that will clearly be developed in the next instalment of the series. There are also several questions raised by interactions between the officers that are not answered in this story – several mysteries are yet to be answered. 

There is a lot going on in this book – at times I did wonder if it was too much. However, it was engaging. The dynamic between the established police characters was interesting and fairly unique to this type of book, and it was a casual mention about Cal Dion's past that hooked me into the story. It does tempt me to go back and read the rest of the series. 

The sheer volume of bodies that turn up in this book does push the limit of my suspension of disbelief, personally, as well as each one not being given enough gravitas. The reveals too were all a little anticlimactic – especially the final one which despite not being worked out by the police until the very end, was very clearly shown to readers about halfway through the book.

It was a decent read though, I just think that I'd have enjoyed it more having been invested in the series and characters already.

Thank you to Netgalley and Dundurn Press for an advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

I love reading books set in Canada and I thought that Greenaway did a great job creating the atmosphere of North Vancouver.

Unfortunately this wasn't the book for me. The characters were hard to follow (many nicknames and a really large cast that did not seem to come together) and it felt like there were too many different plots taking place that no one story got the attention and sense of urgency it needed.  Part of this may be that I have not read the previous books in the series and that might have cut down on the clutter of characters and made for a smoother read.

EXCERPT: 'Got to be the killer,' Shiomi said now, as they drove towards the school, recapping their findings. She was lolling in the passenger seat, JD at the wheel, and they had fifteen minutes ahead of them in heavy traffic. 'Who else would be out there, nearly midnight, early February, miserable shitty weather? Nobody's going to be making out on the steps or shooting hoops. Stalking lone females in parking lots - that's about the only attraction as far as I can see. Right?'

'I dunno,' JD said.

JD's bottom-line assessment of Shiomi was still dislike, and she didn't care if the woman knew it. She'd just chalk it up to envy, and maybe she was partly right.

I wish I, too, was such a jewel.

ABOUT THIS BOOK: In rain-drenched Vancouver, detectives Dion and Leith chase connections between a tragic drowning, a violent assault, and an apparent suicide.

February is the month of romance, but in North Vancouver it’s also become the month of murder. While the North Shore RCMP slog through the rain in the search for whoever left a young woman to die in the Riverside Secondary School parking lot — their first clue a Valentine’s Day card — a toddler mysteriously vanishes from a Riverside Drive home in the midst of a dinner party.

With Constable JD Temple's full attention on the parking lot murder, Constables Dave Leith and Cal Dion work the kidnap … until a tenuous connection is made between the two cases, along with the thinnest ray of hope that the child could be alive and well in the hands of a childless couple.

But when more tragedy rains down on the North Shore, lies must be unveiled before the ugly truth can emerge.

MY THOUGHTS: Okay, straight off, I struggled with this book. It was like being in thick fog in an unfamiliar landscape, where every now and then the fog would thin and I would think that I knew where I was, only for the fog to come down again and I would, once more, lose my bearings.

River of Lies is the fifth book in the B.C. Blues Crime series, which may be part of the problem. This is a series that needs to be read from the beginning. It appears that several characters have complicated back stories which are only referred to in River of Lies, not explained. There are also ongoing cases from the earlier books.

But putting that aside, there were things I liked about the writing, and things I didn't. There really doesn't seem to be any sense of urgency regarding solving any of the crimes. There's a murdered woman, and a missing toddler to start with, but absolutely zero tension or suspense. Even the parents of the missing toddler just get on with their complicated and messy lives! The RCMP seem more interested in their social lives and office politics than in actually solving crimes. There is no real sense of teamwork or camaraderie either. The detectives all seem to be at loggerheads with each other, and none of them trust the others. There is crassness and crudity in places. Sometimes warranted, sometimes not.

The characters are complex, and it took me some time to even start to warm up to them, and with some it never happened at all. Cal Dion, and that got confusing - at times he was Cal, at others, Dion - has great intuition, but has a great propensity to land himself in trouble. Dave Leith is wary of Cal, and watches him closely. He is unsure if he should trust him, which doesn't make for a great partnership. JD complains a lot, about everything, and is a stickler for the rules. I don't think she has a lot of self confidence, and tends to overcompesate in an effort to cover it up.

There is some beautiful writing in this book, but also a fair amount of confusion. I can't honestly say that I enjoyed this read, but neither, once I settled into the author's style, did I actively dislike it. The plot, if you strip away all the extrapolation, was a good one and this would have been a better read for me had the author stuck more closely to it.

👨‍👩‍👧👮‍♂️🚔

#BcBlues #NetGalley

'Megan delivered the news as if it were a deliciously melting chunk of chocolate in her mouth.'

'Strange to give someone cut flowers as proof of love. Flowers, once cut, are dead, no matter how nice they look. Snipped from their lifeblood, bunched together, strangled by a ribbon, placed on display.'

THE AUTHOR: RM GREENAWAY has worked in nightclubs, darkrooms, and courthouses. She writes the B.C. BLUES crime series, featuring RCMP detectives Leith and Dion.

DISCLOSURE: Thank you to Dundurn Press via NetGalley for providing a digital ARC of River of Lies by R.M.Greenaway for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.

For an explanation of my rating system please refer to my Goodreads.com profile page or the about page on sandysbookaday.wordpress.com

This review is also published on Twitter, Amazon and my webpage sandysbookaday.wordpress.com

I received an advanced reader copy of River of Lies from Dundurn Press via NetGalley, in return for my honest opinion.

River of Lies by R. M. Greenaway is a story about the the different people we are in different relationships. In North Vancouver, the local police are February to be a busy month…While JD works on solving the murder of a young woman found in a school parking lot. Detective Leith and Dion focus on the kidnapping of a toddler. It seems with every clue, more suspects are brought into the mix, soon these clues link these two cases.

This book was alright. It seemed like the author was trying accomplish too much- too many points of view, too many suspects. I also didn’t like that the book just seemed to end, the mysteries were solved but you didn’t really see anything unfold as much as you were given the summary. River of Lies will be available tomorrow, Tuesday, April 7, 2020.

#rmgreenaway #riveroflies #netgalley #arcs #advancedreadercopy #mystery #mysterybooks #readin2020 #dundurnpress #whatthebook #bookreviews #readersofinstagram #bookaholic

Fans of the series should know up front that we finally find out what Cal did!  No spoilers!  For those who haven't read it - know that this is a multilayered procedural with great characters, all of whom are hiding something.  Cal had a tbi and has holes in his memory (among other things).  His partner Dave has been seconded to investigate him.  Now, they're investigating two cases- a murder in a school parking lot and the disappearance of a small child.  Either would be a tough one but together, they make more a winding complex tale that will keep you turning the pages.  Non-Canadian readers (like myself) might occasionally stop to check up on Canadian law; the setting and atmospherics are wonderful.  Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.  This ends with a wow.

I'm sure that this is part of a series, so, I struggled with some of it.
The writing was adequate, and I'm sure that if I was involved in reading the prior stories, that I might have gotten through this better.  Some of the characterisations were solid, but I wasn't sure I really followed the whole story completely.

I was not a fan of this book. I felt the writing was very unprofessional but not in an easy, fun way; more like a childish way.  It was also a strange story and a bit difficult for me to follow; it was a slow read.

You can read this as a stand alone book but there were parts in the book where I knew I was missing some backstory that would have made more sense had I read the first four books, but I didn't miss so much that it impacted my ability to follow the plot.

The book starts with a crime occurring in a school parking lot and you start following the investigation only to have another crime occur and the storyline is completely taken over by this crime. It's only towards the end of the book that you really come back around to the first crime again.

This was a harder book for me to read as it seemed to jump around and had too much going on; with two crimes being openly investigated, a secret investigation and a lot of personal relationships that seemed overly dramatic. If you like RM Greenway and/or have read the other four books first, you might find this a more enjoyable read.

This is a 4.5 upgraded to a 5 star. This is my first contact with this author and this series. This is book 5 in the series, and while there is definitely some background information covered in the previous novels, I was able to grasp ahold of the storyline without issue. Set in the wintry wonderland on Northern Vancouver, Canada, this story splits early in with the tenacious JD Temple investigating the apparent homicide of Tasha Aziz, a night janitor. Her fellow compatriots, Dion and Leith, catch the bizarre case of a missing toddler from a high end neighborhood. 
Neither case seems to have easy answers or obvious leads. It soon becomes clear that everyone involved with the disappearance of the toddler has secrets or hidden agendas. When information links the case of the missing toddler to the mysterious homicide of Tasha Aziz, this talented group of detectives must pool their efforts to solve these cryptic cases. This story is filled with many different twists, that are always fun because it keeps us guessing. It would be fun to read the previous novels in the series as it is clear the characters involved have complicated histories. Thank you to Netgalley for the early copy.

This was a rough one for me. It started off slow and I struggled to get going. To be honest I almost did not finish this guy.
I will say it did get better, it just took awhile for me to really get into it. The premise was interesting. I did get frustrated with detectives and felt like it could have been a quick solve if they listed to Dion to begin with.
I don’t think it helped that this was my first read of the series and it’s the 5th book in the series.
I think I’m also spoiled by my favorite crime writer: Tana French.
This was a good book but it was definitely not my favorite crime book I’ve ever read. To those who read the entire series however, this could be a good continuation.

First book in this series and won't surely be the last. It's a gripping and entertaining read with a solid mystery and a cast of interesting characters.
I liked the descriptions of Vancouver and the mystery kept me guessing.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

I picked this police procedural because of the location, Vancouver, a place I’ve always wanted to visit. 
This is the fifth in the series and I felt the loss of not having read the prior books.  There are a large cast of characters just in terms of the police.   Leith and Dion are fairly new partners.   Dion is being privately investigated by the department’s sargeant and Leith is the man’s eyes and ears.  
I did like that this police force wasn’t one big happy family.  There’s plenty of mistrust and dislike to go around, not just between Leith and Dion.  And they also don’t agree on how to handle the investigation which I found very realistic and refreshing.   And it seems like everyone has some secrets.  
There are two crimes being investigated - the murder of a school janitor at the school parking lot and a missing baby.   At times, some of the suspects overlap and we’re left to wonder if they could somehow be related.  
The writing is fairly basic but there are some good turns of phrase.  “She also believed he would be easy to crack, but it would take a firm hand.  Lead him to the confessional and kick him inside.”   It’s a fast paced book with lots of red herrings.  I was definitely caught off base by the ending to the one case.  
My thanks to netgalley and Dundurn Press for an advance copy of this book.

Ooo such a creepy and exciting read! I absolutely loved diving into this book and I think everyone else will too! Well written and the characters were top notch.