Graveyard Fields is a very good start to a new series. The characters are well developed and the main one in this story is an ex-cop, who uses drugs and drinks too much. He is the antithesis of a hero, but that's the role he is granted in the story, which is fast-paced, dark humored, and with flawed characters that grab your attention and even make you laugh. A very enjoyable read!
I downloaded a free copy of this book through NetGalley and this is my unbiased opinion.

A hilarious, suspenseful read! Very few books can get this combination right & this one hit the mark -bullseye. Graveyard Fields was every bit compelling & thrilling & I absolutely LOVED the main characters! Dale, Floppy & Davis are so unusually unique, their dialogues, mannerisms had me laughing so hard & the plot too had me turning those pages! I don't remember a book that did that to me. I don't think I've had enough of this trio & an looking forward to the next book. What an absolute gem of a book to end the year with! I'm only upset I didn't read this sooner cause I could've used the laughs! Easily one of the very best for 2021!

Thank you, NetGalley, crooked lane books & Steven Tingle for this arc!

It’s a short read so it’s a super quick read!! I loved it from start to finish!! I read it in a few hours. The characters are real and the setting is easy to visualize. I felt like I was really living the story with the characters!! Great read!! Highly recommend!!

Loved this book!!! I hope the author plans on more stories centered around the cast of Graveyard Fields, because this is a true standout! Excellent plot, great supporting characters, a flawed but interesting and honest main character. And a whopping good story!!! I have been bowled over and pleasantly surprised, and I look forward to more from this author.

This story is brought to life by the cast of characters. The plot is good but the characters are even better and very unforgettable.
Many thanks to Crooked Lane Books and to NetGalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

I’m going to be very honest here. This book took me forever to finish because I just couldn’t get invested in the storyline, at least what was supposed to be a storyline.

It starts out like an action-packed mystery thriller and then spirals into wasted time discussing home brewed beer. I don’t know how we got here, but we did. And it was brutally boring.

Trigger warnings: alcohol abuse, drug abuse, and obsessive foul language.

Overall Rating: ⭐️⭐️/5 stars

Thank you to NetGalley & Crooked Lane Books for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Loved this book. Great anti-hero and cast of characters. Don't know if it's a debut or not but an author worth watching.

This is Steve Tingle's début novel, the first in a series about a former police officer turned private investigator called Davis Reed who is writing a book. Davis was with the Charleston PD but now he is staying in a cabin in the smalltown of Cruso, in the hills of Pisgah National Forest, North Carolina, where he is meant to be writing a true story as well as hiding out in the woods as a result of an unfortunate stunt. One day he is out walking and finds a set of keys. His curiosity gets the better of him and soon, becoming obsessed, he sets out to marry the keys with their owner with the help of a couple of friends.

With its swift pacing and enjoyably quirky characters, I found this a refreshing, suspenseful and humorous read. The twists had me guessing to the end of this super mystery. Davis is a deeply flawed, prescription pill-popping, homebrew addict who escapes one mystery only to find himself up to his neck in another. I finished Graveyard Fields hoping I will shortly be reading book two.

Disclosure: Thank you to Crooked Lane for providing a digital ARC of Graveyard Fields by Steve Tingle, via Netgalley for review. All opinions expressed in this review are my own.

A first-time novelist Steven Tingle’s Graveyard Fields is the first in a new series, introducing Davis Reed, a private detective with serious personal issues who uses alcohol and drugs to manage. On the pretence of writing a novel, Davis escapes to a mountain cottage to recover from being shot. A car left in a car park at a national park twigs his interest but the local sheriff office is not concerned. So begins a slow building crime tension with a damaged hero who can’t stay away from trouble. An enjoyable enough story with a three-star rating. With much thanks to T Crooked Lane Books and the author for an uncorrected proof copy for review purposes.

Fans of southern noir might enjoy this but know in advance that it's a bit of a mish mash. Davis Reed has retreated to the woods, renting a cabin from Sherriff's Deputy Dale Johnson, with the thought that he's going to write a book about the crash of plane into Cold Mountain. Sure. Not so much because he's a mess. And then he gets the odd idea to track down the owner of a set of keys that he finds in the woods, which leads to a side track into murder. There are some good characters and some who feel like tropes. I wanted to like this more than I did. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. '

PI Davis Reed heads to Cruso, NC, with his anxiety pills and beer (and beer brewing equipment) after being shot, with the idea of writing a book about the plane that crashed into Cold Mountain in 1946. Fighting writer's block, Davis becomes obsessed with finding the owner of a set of keys he finds on a mountain trail. Along with his self-appointed new "best friend" and owner of the cabin, local deputy and 80's metal aficionado Dale Johnson, Davis finds more than he bargained for. Fast-paced with enjoyably quirky characters, this book is fresh, suspenseful and humorous, with twists that keep you guessing to the end. I finished this book hoping it will be the start of a series.

I received an advanced copy, of this book from the publisher, through netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This book is well written and the characters are described well. It has TRIGGER WARNINGS ⚠️ ALCOHOL AND DRUG ABUSE. I did enjoy the main male character Davis Reed. It will keep you on the edge of your seat, trying to figure out what is going, to happened from the first page. Dale Johnson's character is great also. It is set in Charleston South Carolina and North Carolina. It will be in stores on August 10, 2021 for $27.99 (USD).

Thanks #netgallery. I loved this book. Great story and great description of Western NC. Complex, interesting story. I can't say enough good things about this book. Highly recommended.

Graveyard Fields Appeared Interesting; It Wasn’t

The novel opens with Davis Reed following his sister’s husband, Greg, who is a sergeant in the Charleston Police Department. Greg uses police calls for leaving home at various hours, but the wife thinks that he is having an affair. As Davis is a private detective, she asks him to follow him to confirm her suspensions. Greg drives past his police station and continues on to a 24-hour storage complex. Davis watches until he leaves and sneaks in. After Greg and another person in an Audi leave, he approaches the garage door. He guesses at the combination and opens the garage. Inside he finds bags of marijuana, pills, cash and a Glock. Then, Greg returns. After a heated discussion, a fight ensues. Davis achieves the upper hand, but then the he’s blinded by the headlights of another car. That person shoots him in the leg and he falls asleep.

A new chapter starts sometime later with Davis waking in a remote cabin in southwest North Carolina near Cold Mountain. The author took quite a few pages to explain how Davis went from being shot to being in the isolated cabin almost 300 miles from Charleston. During this time, the foundation of the other main storyline thread really starts here. While Davis was hiking, he discovers a key ring full of keys off the trail. The novel proceeds from here.

The main storyline was very disjointed and spent an inordinate time on homebrewed beer. All the major characters seem to homebrew beer. If they don’t, they prefer drinking homebrewed beer, and the local drinking establishment serves its own homebrewed beer. The are long discussions on homebrewing beer. Back to the storyline, Davis rents the cabin from a local North Carolina Deputy Sheriff who when presented with odd circumstances surrounding the keys dismisses foul play out of hand, even in the mounting events surrounding the keys. This character just did not seem realistic to me. For the second main story thread for why he is there and the events back in Charleston, raised several red flags. Something was just not right, and I felt Davis should have seen this earlier. As the novel was approaching the conclusion, there were some twists and turns some of which were quite good. Unfortunately, for me it was too little and too late.

For the B-storyline, if you remove all the discussion and drinking of homebrewed beer, there wasn’t much substance in the B-storyline threads. I felt the only character that was the best defined was the Sheriff. For me, the B-storylines were very thin.

If foul language is objectionable for you, this book will be a problem. The Deputy Sheriff can’t seem to string two sentences together without a vulgar word or two. I’m retired Navy having served on three ships. I am quite tolerant of this language, but even for me, it was excessive.

After reading the teaser on NetGalley, this novel sounded interesting. I requested it. If it wasn’t for a promise that I made in my NetGalley biography that if I receive a book, I will read it completely, I probably would have stopped early. While there were glimpses of potential by this author, I will not be reading any of this author’s books at least for a while. I rate this novel with two stars.

I received a free e-book version of this novel through NetGalley from Crooked Lane Books with an expectation for an honest, unbiased review. I wish to thank Crooked Lane Books for the opportunity to read and review their novels early.

This is a mystery/thriller set in the foothills of Cold Mountain in western North Carolina. The main character, Davis Reed, is an ex-cop turned private investigator who tries to escape his past by moving to a small town to “write a novel”. While dealing with anger issues, alcoholism and addiction, Davis finds that there is intrigue, friendship and lots of danger in this small town.

I really enjoyed this story! This is a fast-paced, fun book to read on a rainy weekend. I thought the characters were really well developed and are quite interesting! My favorite being a kleptomaniac and conspiracy theorist!! This is the author’s debut novel but I found that he has an impressive style of writing. The reader is plunged straight into the mystery of Davis’ life before moving and before long another intrigue pops up! I’d definitely recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a good mystery/thriller!

“Maybe I had something to prove. Or maybe I was procrastinating on my book. Or maybe the angel on my shoulder was giving me a distraction to try to lower my beer and pill intake. Whatever the reason, my gut was telling me to go to that house.”

** Thank you to NetGalley for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review! **

#PamelaReads2021 #100BooksIn2021 #GraveyardFields #MysteryThriller #NetGalleyARC

Stephen Tingle’s debut novel is fast-paced, fun and suspenseful. The story centers around Davis Reed, an ex cop turned PI who tries to escape his past by moving to a small town to write a book. On a walk he finds a set of keys and suddenly Davies finds himself in deep trouble. .

The story is a bit uneven but it has a great start and a thrilling ending. It's the characters that makes this book worth reading. There are some really strong and interesting characters, especially Floppy Johnson who is a kleptomaniac and a conspiracy theorist.

Overall a solid book that definitely is worth the time to read.

Thanks to Steven Tingle, NetGalley, and Crooked Lane Books for this ARC.

I like books with seriously flawed main characters...and Davis Reed certainly fits the bill. He is a former cop who was working as a PI when he discovered his sister's policeman husband in some very shifty business. Now he's in rural North Carolina, supposedly writing a book, but mostly popping pills, home brewing, and drinking beer with his landlord, Deputy Dale Johnson. A set of keys found on a mountain path set Davis on a path to serious trouble. My favorite character in Graveyard Fields is Deputy Johnson's scruffy mechanic cousin, a kleptomaniac, conspiracy theorist, and bit of a windbag who reveals hidden talents in the nick of time. Many thanks to NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for a truly enjoyable read.

Davis Reed is an ex cop, turned PI who tries to escape his past by moving to a small town to write a book, but he soon get sidetracked when he finds a set of keys and goes about trying to find the rightful owner of these keys, but this then leads to more drama and Chaos for Davis.

I found this book to be slow paced at times, but I really like the lead character Davis who has many flaws including an alcohol and prescription pill addiction for his anxiety and a short fuse which gets him into a lot of bother.. I also liked his relationship with his friend Dale Johnson who is a local deputy. There are a few twists and turns in this book and rally enjoyed the 50 or so pages of this book.

All in all it was a god debut novel from Steven Tingle

I’d like to thank NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read this book.

Superbly written debut where a sometimes comedic relationship blossoms between small town deputy Dale and the books protagonist Davis when he rents Dales secluded cabin up in the mountains of North Carolina. Davis a deeply flawed but likeable ex cop/private eye, pill popping, craft beer obsessive escapes one mystery only to become embroiled in another. The story unfolds to an 80’s Metal soundtrack and brilliantly observed characters that bring to life this enjoyable thriller, I do hope there’s more Davis and Dale stories to come from Tingle.

Stephen Tingle’s debut novel is a suck-you-slowly and then keep reeling read. Davis Reed is an ex-cop, a private eye, a potential historian. He lands in a town where mundane daily desires soon morph into a modern treasure thriller. Reed is a very sympathetic character, bubbly and lovable, pitiable and naive in turn. Tingle’s easy style belies a taut telling of a rural crime tale, one that propels you to a surprise ending. Highly recommended.