A well written book, and interesting tale about a murderer with a vision., science versus morals,and the price you are willing to pay, for anything!
The first part of the book kept me gripped, and was a real page turner. However, with little depth to the main characters, and so many characters to keep up with I began to lose interest.
Not a bad book, just not one of my favourites.

3.5 stars rounded up to 4 because I see potential in this series. I do like Tess Gerritsen's Rizzoli and Isles series and that's what drew me to try this out. It is a bit gruesome in medical detail (not violence). Google images of 'teratomas' and if you can handle those, then you'll be fine reading this. If not, you may want to pass on this or you can just skim over those pages.

I liked the relationship between Whit (reporter) and Riggs (medical examiner). We follow crimes from two different perspectives and ways of investigating. I wouldn't necessarily describe it as a 'non-stop thrill ride' as annotated on the cover, but it was a compelling journey to find the truth and the added reality of the teratomas was disgustingly interesting.

There were a few things I thought could have been different- the fact that Whit had two daughters was not very ingratiated in the story. I kept forgetting. I don't know if it was just because they weren't involved much or if it was a lack in character portrayal by the author in shaping how we viewed her as a person. I just didn't really see her as a mom and her daily routine didn't leave much room for family. Seeing as this is the beginning of a series, I can see how this is the set-up for future books and that we'll probably see more of her daughters later on. The author will have more space for deepening character visibility and development.

The second thing I thought was lacking was the 'solving' at the end. I think we got all the answers and explanations but some of them weren't very robust. The who was clear and part of the why, but the 'how' was a bit vague, and the jump between the killer/s 'vision' and the killing of all of the victims wasn't solidly laid out. I would have liked more information about that woven into the story (and not just added to the 'confessional' wrap-up as sometimes is done).

The last thing I'm wondering about is the title- I'm not sure exactly where this comes from. After reading it, I'm not sure what the desperate place is or who is in a desperate place. The photo indicates maybe they're referring to Whit's PTSD regarding forests but that's just a character detail not part of the plot or storyline. I think I would have come up with a different title. But that's just a personal preference *shrug*

Oh, wait, another teeny tiny little thing that doesn't really matter but I need to point out... She named a company that does stem cell research 'Human Resources' and later abbreviates it as HR in references. But considering virtually every company in existences has a human resources department, that's an odd and confusing choice for a company name right?? So you could say, 'I work in human resources at Human Resources.' I think we all see it...

ANYWAY, I think it's accurate to say that if you like Gerritsen, then you'll probably like this!

*Sidenote: The advanced digital copy I received and read had quite a few spelling and grammatical errors to my chagrin but I'm assuming it will go through another edit before publishing*

**I received an ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review**

I love the combination of crime reporter and ME detective, and this book set a good foundation for the duo in future stories. I liked the that a teratoma featured - points for originality there definitely.
However, the story for me lacked dialogue that felt authentic at times and I struggled to connect emotionally to the characters. I felt like I was being told about their lives rather than their lives featuring in their world.
Overall it was an okay read with good pacing.

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a copy of this debut novel. I must admit I found the book a bit slow paced and overly descriptive in places. The number of times Whit contemplated her war reporting got a bit tedious. I also found a lack of emotional connection to the characters. The fact that one had children, and the other a husband was mentioned many times, but for no good reason. Those relationships did not really serve any purpose.

Having said all that, it was an interesting plot, and I do see potential for this pair of heroines. Maybe just some tightening up of characters.

Thanks for this book. I felt it was a good first start. I liked the main character but felt the plot was a little slow and clunky

A stop and start book. Parts of it moved right along, but then other chapters seemed stilted. The plot was interesting, the characters like-able.
The description was at times overwhelming (and I love description) and other times, there was little. As far as this being a first novel, it's a great effort and a good read. I've just been reading a-lot lately and maybe am getting to judgey.

My thanks to Crooked Lane, Netgalley and Ms. Greer.
I loved maybe the.first.15 % or so, then it all went down the hole. I'm mostly thinking of one of those holes that you squat upon, in a castle. This wasn't my thing. I did think that it just might be one of those psych. thrillers! Those are books I love it hate.
I This book was in the "Meh" category! Mostly, meh..knock me upside the noggin with a crowbar if I have to keep reading this!
If I had nothing else to read, then I would read more of this.. Not my thing, but please read the other reviews! I'm hard to please lately!

I enjoyed the two main characters. They were well developed and personable. I enjoyed the book overall, just had a few drawn out parts. I enjoyed the medical terminology that was explored on the teratoma and how it was a different twist on a mystery. I would recommend to anyone wanting to read a “different” mystery/thriller. Definitely a promising author.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an advanced copy.

Most excellent effort for a first novel. There are interesting and complex characters, a really curious and novel reason for killing the poor victims.

I liked the women and their relationships. but what I thought was poignant was the descriptions of grief and loss. It is quite clear that the author has some close experience with this. She shows an understanding of how one has to learn to live with the vast collections of our backgrounds, like it or not.

I will look forward to future installments.

My TBR has been stacked lately, and A Desperate Place came at an excellent time. I was in the mood for both a medical and a legal thriller, and Jennifer Greer's work hit all the points.

Whit, a former war correspondent and current local news reporter, is still recovering from the death of her husband in Afghanistan where they were working an unfortunately captured. She finds herself in the midst of a series of murders that are seemingly unrelated--or definitely murders, for that matter--until Riggs, the detective Medical Examiner, helps her find a link: each victim had a rare, but interesting tumor: a tetratoma, a monster tumor, that is directly related to embryonic stem cell therapy. Alternating between the legal investigation and Whit's story-chasing, we're given a fast-paced look at what happens behind the scenes from both angles. They have to find the killer before he strikes again, but how can you find a killer who's targeting high-profile clients with very little outward connections?

Character development goes a long way in this book, especially considering the attention-grabbing conflict our MCs are faced with. Whit's flashbacks to her time in Afghanistan, to the painful, horrific moment in which she loses her husband, are extremely well done, and Greer does well breathing life into the tragedy. Riggs' battle with cancer and her subsequent connection to the victims also rang true, and I loved how well-rounded they were.

I also appreciated the pacing and structure of this book. The chapters read quickly, the plot wasn't dense, and I thoroughly enjoyed how the story unfolded. It's a true talent to keep the reader guessing at the mystery until the very end, and Greer did a great job creating doubt and debunking suspicions.

The banter/conversational parts were lovely. For my taste, though, I found some of the dialogue to be a little stinted. Characters had a tendency to speak in largely uninterrupted chunks, sometimes bordering monologue-tone. At times, there were strings of platitudes in a row, offering general, philosophical observations about life, hardship, love, tragedy, grief, etc. Those interactions took me out of the story, a bit, and I found myself less than interested in these parts. While incredibly interesting, I found the dialogue with medical professionals more of a verbatim dictionary read than a realistic conversational structure, and I wanted it to feel a little less forced. However, the information is fascinating, and I loved getting deeper knowledge about autopsy procedures, stem cell collection, and medical license practices. The details elevated the urgency and made for some visceral imagery.

Overall, A Desperate Place is a wonderful, fast-paced read with solid characterization and interesting insight into reporting, medical procedures, and legal action. I'd recommend this to anyone looking for a dishy thriller with real-world grit.

Thank you to Crooked Lane Books and NetGalley for providing me with an eARC in exchange for review consideration.

This is a debut work by this author and I would like to applaud the plot involving a teratoma which is new to me. She has done a good ground work with the medical terms and complications and has kept them simple and lucid. The combination of a reporter and a detective, two people who usually don’t get along is interesting. The narrative is fast paced. What I feel as negatives are the rumination could be shortened in the last part as it slows the pace and loose threads could be tied up.This author definitely has potential and I wish her good luck. 4. 5 stars

This book had potential, about 2/3 way I just lost interest and it wasn’t too much of a shocker at the end. I did like the journalist and Riggs, I’d be interested in a different plot with the two of them. Thanks to Netgalley for the arc!

This was an interesting book, that definitely held my interest. I felt the characters were fleshed out and added a good back story to the mystery itself. I have to give credit to the author for coming up with a unique storyline. I had never heard of "teratomas", and found myself looking them up online to research them further, talk about gross and fascinating at the same time! The author also did a good job of exploring some people's obsession with youth, and the lengths they will go to too stay young. Good read, definitely a page turner for me, and I can see myself reading more books featuring Whit. Being a resident of the Pacific Northwest, the setting was one I know well and love too:)

This book took me a bit to get into but the last quarter got me hooked. Not my favorite but I'd definitely read another book by Jennifer Greer. The characters were likeable and imagery was vivid.

Let me start by saying that there are a lot of positive things about this book. The cover is lovely, the title is compelling, and I really liked the premise of A Desperate Place. There are only so many ways and reasons a person can die in crime fiction, so the plot around teratomas was really fresh and interesting. I also appreciated that Greer used a light hand on the gratuity. Although that sort of thing doesn't necessarily bother me, sometimes this genre can get really gory for shock value. But there's none of that here, and it was refreshing. Though I really regret Googling "teratoma!"

I also like the friendship between Riggs and McKenna and the fact that A Desperate Place is suggested for Rizzoli and Isles fans. I love Tess Gerritsen. And though I didn't have the instant connection that I did when I read the first Rizzoli and Isles book, I'd read Greer's next to see how their professional relationship progresses.

There were, of course, a few things that made me pause. Several typos (which I would guess would be gone in the final copy) and "hey there Bob" dialogue were distracting and took me out of the story. This also felt overly long. I skimmed over many passages (I could only take Whit's ruminations on being a war reporter so many times) of somewhat repetitive and unnecessary narrative just to get to dialogue that advanced the plot.

I also missed emotional emotional connections to the characters. It's not until almost a quarter of the way in that we find out Whit has children and it made me think, what the heck were both she and her husband getting kidnapped in Afghanistan for when they have two young girls at home? at that point. And I'll be honest, when the killer is revealed, instead of the "oh my gosh!" reaction I like with these sort of books, I couldn't even remember who the character was.

But overall, I enjoyed the book for the most part and would definitely give the second book a chance.

Thank you to NetGalley and Crooked Lane books for giving me the opportunity to read this book in return for an honest review.

A fast paced thriller with a futuristic story line. A good partnership looks to be shaping up between the reporter and the medical detective.

This is the first in what I hope is a continuing series about a crime reporter (Whit McKenna) and a ME detective (Katie Riggs). An unlikely pair--Whit is widowed, and has retreated to Oregon with her daughters to recover after losing her husband after a joint assignment in Afghanistan, Katie is recovering from cancer--the two trade small favors as they independently investigate a series of murders that occur among the area's elite. The premise that underlies the murders is unique and I can't say that I've seen it before, and was enough to keep me guessing until the end. Whit and Katie are a fresh new pairing and I hope to see them again soon.

A reporter and a medical examiner try to solve three murders that seem unconnected in this book by Jennifer Greer. Whit McKenna is trying to recover from losing her husband and her job at a the L.A. Times. Katie Riggs has recently been treated for cancer. When a famous actress is found murdered they begin investigating the case from different angles. Two more murders follow, and when McKenna and Riggs dig deeper they realize that all three may have been committed by one person. This book reminded me of the Rizzoli and Isles series by Tess Gerritsen. It was slow in the beginning but started to gain momentum in the second half. A solid debut novel by Jennifer Greer.

3 and 1 / 2 stars

Two very different women are very good friends in this book. News reporter Whit McKenna teams up with her friend medical examiner detective Katie Riggs to investigate the death of a well known actress. Both women are recovering from life threatening and harrowing experiences.

Niki Francis' body is found in a shallow grave near Medford, Oregon partially eaten by a bear. Who would want to kill the popular actress? Was it a case of a celebrity stalker? The surfacing of more bodies puts paid to that theory.

This is a very slow moving story. I kept stopping and going back to it. The writing was very well done and the book was easy to read. I had problems with the pacing though. I kept wanting the action to hurry up and get to it. I like that the novel starred two women who overcame adversity to carry on their lives successfully.

I want to thank NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for forwarding to me a copy of this fairly good book for me to read, enjoy and review.

In Jennifer Greer's A Desperate Place, her two main characters could not be more different: Whit, mother of two, tragically widowed, and a transplanted newspaper reporter that contrasts with Katie, cancer survivor, married to a lawyer, and a medical examiner who works for the coroner. However, it's the women's commitment to their friendship and working around their differences that makes this novel so special. Centered in Oregon, influential individuals are dying (or are they being murdered) under strange circumstances. Katie and Whit work together, each staying loyal to their professions and their friendship, to determine the cause of these strange deaths. It's a fabulous first novel, and I hope there are more adventures of Katie and Whit coming! I'm now a big fan of Ms. Greer.