Funeral for a Friend

I have followed this series since the beginning. This just might be the best one yet. Stride, Maggie, Serena, Cat...all are just as important to me as a reader as I've become invested in them. This book answers a lot of questions from the past and also opens new doors. I look forward to the next story.

Brian Freeman is a top notch author. His books are written with brevity and a nice turn of phrase, occasionally.
Wonderful plot. Always look forward to his books.

All right readers! Another winner in the Jonathan Stride series! Mark the month of September, 2020 for the release of this explosive thriller with more twists and turns than a West Virginia mountain road. I have a feeling you will not want to put this one down until the end and boy what an ending it is! I have to tell you I did not see this one coming. This series just keeps getting better and better. Hurry up with the next one, Mr. Freeman!

Highly recommended!

SUPERB!!!

I have followed the entire Jonathan Stride series - I believe that this may be the best story of them all!

Although this can be read as a standalone, I recommend all of the other books in this Brian Freeman series - as well as other books he has written.

Lots of action, twists, and suspense will appeal to readers of many genres. I literally could not put this book down....

Many Thanks to Blackstone Publishing and NetGalley for a wonderful read.

Thank you Netgalley for the opportunity to preview Funeral for A Friend by Brian Freeman. The Stride series is one of my favorites. Freeman brings Stride to the brink in this new novel. Returning characters and the landscape are vivid; not to mention alot of action and intrigue.
Another hit for Freeman - this one is really good.
4 stars.

I am a big fan of Freeman’s Jonathan Stride series and this book just reinforces that. Stride’s best friend’s dying words were a reassurance that he helped Stride by covering up a murder Stride committed years before. But did Stride commit the murder? If you enjoy a good mystery then you should enjoy this book!

Funeral For a Friend by Brian Freeman is the 10th book in the Jonathan Stride series. In this story, Stride‘s best friend Steve is about to die of cancer. On his deathbed he tells Stride not to worry that he took care of the body. Stride is not sure what he’s talking about. Once Steve dies, Stride informs the Duluth homicide team and his partner Maggie about what Steve said. He tells them to dig up a garden in Steve’s yard. A skeleton is found with a bullet hole in the head. It is soon revealed that it is the remains of Ned Baer. Years ago Ned was in town to cover a story about a politician anonymously accused of rape. He was digging up dirt on people and making lots of enemies. Unfortunately, Stride was one of the last people to see him. Stride becomes the main suspect in the murder.
In the meantime, Cat, the young woman whom Straub and his wife Serena have taken is in a huge mess. Somebody is stalking her and threatening her.
Are these two things connected? Who killed Ned? What really happened all those years ago? This is a very intricate storyline. Do not read this book if you have not read the previous books in the series. I really love the characters. Freeman does a great job of bringing them to life and making them human. I feel like I know all these people personally. I look forward to many more books to come in the series. Thank you to net galley and the publisher for the advanced copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

5 Stars

Review on Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads. Will be placed on Amazon after (09/22)

Blog Site: https://bit.ly/3bvobAV

Book: Funeral for a Friend (Jonathan Stride #10)

Author: Brian Freeman

Release date (if applicable): September 22, 2020

Synopsis: Stride’s friend is dying. He has one last secret to tell Stride before he goes. The body of a reporter who was tormenting Stride’s former wife is buried in his yard with a bullet in his head. Who killed him and why are all eyes on Jonathan Stride? While Stride is trying to clear his name, his ward, Cat finds herself with a stalker who wants her dead.

My rating: Oh so 5 Stars!

My opinion: So, while 2020 has been a stressful year, I have had numerous great things happen. One of those has been the release of a Jonathan Stride novel two years in the making. Brian Freeman is tops on my list for favorite living American mystery writers and one of the top authors I recommend, so when I saw a Jonathan Stride novel in the works, I became giddy. Brian writes stories and characters that suck the reader in almost immediately. Funeral for a Friend was no exception. I found myself having to make myself stop reading it to make time to continue with other books I am currently reading.

Source: Netgalley for review

Would I recommend? Hell yes! Brian Freeman is my number one recommended living American mystery writer and for good reason. I love reviewing his books because every time I do, I get to introduce new readers to a GREAT mystery writer. Mr. Freeman is fantastic about throwing in great twists and turns that throw readers off until the very end. Funeral for a Friend was no different.

Stand Alone or Part of a Series: Funeral for a Friend is number 10 in the Stride series. Now, authors and publishers hate when I do this, but, particularly with this series, give yourself an extra treat and read the series prior to reading this book. Brian Freeman is one of the most character driven authors I read and he remained true to process in this book. This book has a lot of reference to his past books, so a reader may find themselves lost. Can this book be read as a standalone? Sure, but why not give yourself that little extra treat and meet a great new series?!?!

This was my first book by Brian Freeman. I'll note that this is part of a series, I would not recommend this as a stand-alone. There were a few times where I felt I was missing something or moments felt they were bigger than they were to me.

The writing was great, I'd compare him to Ace Atkins. I'll definitely be reading more of his work.

Jonathan Stride’s best friend, Steve Garske, makes a shocking deathbed confession: he protected Stride by covering up a murder. Hours later, the police dig up Steve’s yard and find a body with a bullet hole in its skull. The victim ... a reporter looking for the woman who made an anonymous claim of rape against a well-known politician.

Stride was the last known person to see this man ... but he's lied to protect someone. Stride is off the case and he is a prime suspect in the man's murder. His partner, Maggie Bei, is now lead investigator ... and that includes questioning Stride.

His only ally in clearing his name is his wife, Serena, who retraces the reporter’s investigation into the explosive allegations. The clues all point to a hot Duluth summer years earlier that everyone in town would prefer to forget.

Someone was willing to kill rather than let those long-ago secrets come out, and the suspect with the strongest motive … is Stride.

As with all this author's books, this is a well-written crime thriller, an action-packed page turner with twists and turns that keep on coming. There are plenty of suspects to watch .. and many buried dark secrets. Although 10th in the series, it can be read as a stand alone. However, I strongly recommend starting at the very beginning of this series for some serious 5-star reading.

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

Lake Superior, Duluth.
The last thing that dying dr. Steve says to his life-long best friend police-chief Jonathan Stride is that he buried the body that (he thinks that) Jonathan killed and that nobody knows about it. Stride knows that he didn’t kill anybody but he has a good idea about the identity of the victim. In his garden, they find the body of Ned Baer, a journalist who disappeared 7 years earlier. Stride was the last man, to see him alive. The journalist came to town to find the woman that anonymously accused politician Devin Card of raping her when she was 17, a woman that did not want to be found. We learn early in the book that this woman is Andrea, Stride’s ex-wife. Did she kill the journalist herself, did Ned kill him to protect her anonymity, or did the politician kill him to get rid of the whole story? As Stride is a suspect in this case because he lied back then about certain aspects and refuses to talk now apart from swearing that he’s innocent, he’s suspended for the time of the inquest. His old enemy Dan Erickson leads the investigation and he would love nothing better than finding Stride guilty.
There’s also a second case that clouds the family life of the Stride family even more. Cat, the runaway teenager that lives with Jonathan and Serena, receives weird notes and photos of herself that prove that she’s being stalked. Things get from bad to worse and she’s allocated a police bodyguard.

The story starts out really slow and as the suspense builds up, it gains momentum and cannot be stopped anymore. You fall from 1 surprise into the next. There are so many twists and turns that I can’t put a number on them. And when you think that you’ve solved the case, there’s yet another new element that changes the picture again.
It’s a shame that I haven’t found this series earlier on. This is number 10 already and there are several references to things that happened in the past and even though this story depends hugely on this past, it’s perfectly possible to read and enjoy this book without having read the others. I advise you to read them in order as I think it will increase your pleasure.
The story alternates constantly between both storylines and even though both cases have nothing to do with each other apart from both involving the Stride extended family, somehow Freeman manages to bring them together in the end.
I thank Blackstone Publishing and Netgalley for providing me with a free ARC; this is my unbiased and honest review of it.

‘Funeral for a Friend’ by Brian Freeman (Blackstone Publishing)

Ten books into Brian Freeman’s Jonathan Stride series, “Funeral for a friend” traverses a literary tightrope that few authors can manage: the novel works equally well as a standalone for a first-time reader, or as part of the fuller Stride canon for his longtime fans.

For those fans, Freeman brings back a welcomed cast of characters. There is Stride, of course, a Duluth detective with uncommonly common sense, and Stride’s wife, Serena, their “adopted” daughter, Cat, and Stride’s partner, Maggie Bei, among them.

Here, though, the stakes are higher than they have been before. In this novel, Maggie is forced, in response to a decades-old murder, to ask her partner the unthinkable: “Did you kill him?”

With Freeman’s masterful diversions, deceptions and angular plotting, you’ll be asking yourself the same question — and likely hoping for the same answer as is Maggie. After all, when Stride’s lifelong friend declares in confidence on his deathbed that the detective has nothing more to worry about the body he buried for him, it borders disbelief that Stride wouldn’t know what he’s talking about. Tie this to the secrets Stride has kept for decades about the murder victim’s connection to his ex-wife, and unraveling this whodunit takes on multiple dimensions.

As always, Freeman’s characters here are as developed as his plot, and even if this is your first foray into the Stride universe you’ll come to know Serena, Stride, Cat, Maggie and others as family.

Narrating the familial cast in the 9 1/2-hour long audio version of the novel is Joe Barrett, whose talents range from the adventure-thriller of a Freeman novel to the literary depths of William Faulkner and John Irving. Barrett, who also voices Freeman’s popular Frost Easton series, again brings depth to Stride’s world in this new story.

Easily one of the best of series for Brian Freeman's Stride books. The past and present collide in a fascinating murder investigation where Stride is the main suspect.