I voluntarily reviewed an Advance Reader Copy from the Author. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
The Smuggler's Daughter
by Claire Matturro
Published by Red Adept Publishing on July 7, 2020
Genres: Historical Thriller
Pages: 273
Format: Kindle
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Get Your Copy at: Amazon, Book Depository
Ray Slaverson, a world-weary Florida police detective, has his hands full with the murders of two attorneys and a third suspicious death, all within twenty-four hours. Ray doesn’t believe in coincidences, but he can’t find a single link between the dead men, and he and his partner soon smash into an investigative stonewall.
Kate Garcia, Ray’s fiancée, knows more than she should. She helped one of the dead attorneys, just hours before he took a bullet to the head, study an old newspaper in the library where she works. Kate might be the only person still alive who knows what he was digging up—except for his killer.
When Kate starts trying to discover what’s behind the murders, she turns up disturbing links between the three dead men that track back to her family’s troubled past. But she has plenty of reasons to keep her mouth shut. Her discovery unleashes a cat-and-mouse game that threatens to sink her and those she loves in a high tide of danger.
The Smuggler’s Daughter by Claire Matturro is a brilliantly written mystery with believable characters in a time when people came before technology.
Will Kate’s past return to haunt her, or will she stand up for herself this time?
Kate Garcia
Kate is intelligent, witty, and speaks her mind. She is also funny and realistic. Kate named both her dog and her cat “Maggie” because it is easier and they don’t come when called anyway. She is involved with a police detective named Ray, but I am not sure if they are made for each other. As I am sure, you deduced from the title that Kate’s father, Tank was a smuggler. He was a fisherman, but when that dried up, he turned to fish for “square groupers.”
The story takes us through Kate’s life, the good and the bad. However, it looks like after twenty years, that most horrific night of her life is coming back to haunt her. She tracks down her friends from that time, but it seems for some she is too late and others she doesn’t fit in with any longer. Forgetting and forgiving come hard to Kate, and letting go of the grief is harder.
Police Detective, Ray
Ray is a cop through and through, not only does he enforce the laws, he believes in them. However, Ray loves hard, and at this time, he loves Kate, but will he look the other way when it comes to her past transactions? That is the question that he finds himself asking.
Ray is one of those people that I would reserve my right to like until I got to know him better. He has good qualities and bad, like most of us. The thing with Ray is I think he does what feels right to him, and the rest of us can screw off. Ray has his integrity, and he can’t turn it or his cop mind off. It took me a bit, but I liked Ray by the end of the book.
The Story
The story is set in the past; it kind of bounces around a bit, but I love the way that Ms. Matturro tells the story. There is smuggling, murder, running, death, love, and of course, family. I was rooting for Kate throughout; she is such a dynamic character. The story doesn’t have a happy ending, but I don’t think I would have believed it if the ending was happy.
Five Stars
I was so drawn into this Florida coast drama, that it seemed like it was unfolding in front of my eyes. Ms. Matturro’s writing has edge, thoughtfulness, and it puts you right in there with the characters. My rating for The Smuggler’s Daughter is five stars. I recommend this book to anyone that likes mature mysteries, with suspense and realistic scenes.
Thank you for dropping by! I hope you enjoyed this review of The Smuggler’s Daughter by Claire Matturro.
Until the next time,
This Guest Review is for Baroness’ Book Trove.
About Claire Matturro
Claire Hamner Matturro was raised on tales of errant, unhinged kith and kin, whiskey making, and the War Between the States. Inspired by such stories, she wanted to write fiction, but became a lawyer instead. An honors graduate of The University of Alabama Law School, she became the first female partner in a prestigious Sarasota, Florida law firm. After a decade of lawyering, Claire taught at Florida State University College of Law and spent one long, cold winter as a visiting legal writing professor at the University of Oregon. She guest blogs, reviews books at Southern Literary Review, Sassy Girl Book Expo, and Compulsive Reader, maintains a butterfly garden year round in SW Florida, is active in the Oasis Christian Writers critique group, teaches an occasional adult ed class, and counts her blessings daily. Claire maintains her long love affair with Florida through her fiction, as well as her life.
Her books are: Skinny-Dipping (2004) (a BookSense pick, Romantic Times’ Best First Mystery, and nominated for a Barry Award); Wildcat Wine(2005) (nominated for a Georgia Writer of the Year Award); Bone Valley(2006) and Sweetheart Deal (2007) (winner of Romantic Times’ Toby Bromberg Award for Most Humorous Mystery), all published by William Morrow, and Trouble in Tallahassee (2018 KaliOka Press). Coming in Fall of 2019: Privilege(Moonshine Cove), a steamy legal thriller noir set on the Gulf coast of Florida. She recently finished polishing Wayward Girls–a manuscript she co-wrote with Dr. Penny Koepsel–and awaits the happy news when her agent, the great, fun, funny, and radically energetic Liza Fleissig, places it with the right publisher.
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