Cheater by Karen Rose – Review and Excerpt
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Description:
Death is not an unfamiliar visitor to Shady Oaks Retirement Village, which provides San Diego with premier elderly support from independent retiree housing to full-time hospice care. But when a resident’s body is found brutally stabbed and his apartment ransacked, it’s clear there’s someone deadly in their community. Detective Katherine “Kit” McKittrick quickly discovers that Shady Oaks is full of skeleton-riddled closets, and most tenants prefer to keep their doors firmly closed to the SDPD.
A longtime volunteer at the retirement facility, Dr. Sam Reeves honors his late grandfather’s memory by playing the piano for the residents regularly. So it shouldn’t be such a surprise when Kit crosses paths with him during her investigation, after she’d avoided the criminal psychologist—and the emotions he evokes—for the last six months.
Sam’s rapport within the retirement village proves vital to the case, and the pair find themselves working together once again—much to Kit’s dismay. But she is determined to apprehend the shadow of death lurking around Shady Oaks…and equally determined to ignore the feelings she’s developing for a certain psychologist.
Review:
Cheater by Karen Rose is the 2nd book in her The San Diego Case Files series. The story takes place at Shady Oaks Retirement Village, which provides elderly support from independent housing to hospice care. When a resident’s body is found stabbed to death, Detective Kit McKittrick is on the scene, with her partner, Connor; as they are both homicide detectives. In a short time, there are another two deaths, with three bodies all connected to the retirement home. It is clear someone deadly is in the home.
Kit is surprised to see Dr. Sam Reeves at Shady Oaks (last book Kit walked away from a relationship with Sam). Sam volunteers at the retirement home playing the piano, as well as offer help to the elderly. Sam is a psychologist, knowing a lot about Shady Oaks, and will play a big part of the investigation, helping the SDPD. Sam was close to some of the residents, especially Frankie (who was killed), a former cop; to his shock, Frankie’s best friend, Benny died the following day.
Kit and Connor begin their interviews with staff and some residents, and when the Shady Oaks security officer is missing, they learn he too was murdered; as well as discovering that Benny did not die a normal death. Shady Oaks is an expensive place to reside, and with a number of residents being wealthy. Kit begins to suspect that some of the staff is stealing from residents; with Connor, her colleagues at SDPD, they will need unravel the case, which includes wealthy items stolen. Besides the three deaths, other staff are part of the thefts; however, they need to discover who is behind the actual murders.
I really liked Kit and Connor together as partners, as they made a great team. Some of the residents were terrific, such as Georgia and Eloise, who were very close to Frank and Benny. I also enjoyed Kit’s family, and how they opened their arms to help young teenagers who need to have homes. Of course, I liked Sam, who was a great guy. He strongly cared about Kit, but he knew she needed to open her heart.
Cheater was an exciting, intense and fantastic thriller; with Kit being a fabulous detective. As we reached the last quarter of the book, there were a number twists and turns, with the murderer willing to kill anyone trying to stop them. Cheater was so very well written by Karen Rose, who always writes fantastic mystery thrillers.
Reviewed by Barb
Copy provided by Publisher
CHEATER by Karen Rose
Berkley Hardcover | On sale March 26, 2024
Excerpt
Chapter One
Shady Oaks Retirement Village
Scripps Ranch, San Diego, California
Monday, November 7, 11:20 a.m.
Kit McKittrick allowed herself a moment to feel pity as she stood over the body of the elderly man lying dead on his apartment floor in the Shady Oaks Retirement Village. Then she squared her shoulders and proceeded to do her job.
The mood in the dead man’s living room was subdued. The ME was examining the body while CSU took photos and Latent dusted for prints, but there was little of the normal scene-of-the-crime chatter to which Kit had become accustomed in the four and a half years she’d been in Homicide.
Everyone spoke in hushed whispers, like they were in church. Because it kind of felt like they were. Haunting melancholy music from a single piano was coming from the speaker mounted on the victim’s living room wall. The music wasn’t loud, but it was overwhelming nonetheless. Kit wanted to turn it off, because the music was so sad that it made her chest hurt and her eyes burn.
But neither the speaker nor its volume controls had been dusted for prints, so she couldn’t touch it yet. Until then, she could only square her shoulders, ignore the music, and focus on getting justice for Mr. Franklin Delano Flynn.
The cause of death of the eighty-five-year-old white male was most likely the butcher knife still embedded in his chest. But she’d learned long ago not to assume. Still, a butcher knife to the chest was never good. It was a long wound, the gash in the man’s white button-up shirt extending from his sternum to his navel. Whoever had killed him had to have had a lot of strength to create such a wound.
The victim had been dead long enough for his blood to dry, both the blood that had soaked the front of his shirt and the blood that had pooled on the floor around his torso.
His eyes, filmy in death, stared sightlessly up at the ceiling. His arms lay at his sides, his hands slightly curved. Not quite flat, but not quite fists, either. It wasn’t a natural pose for the victim of a homicide who’d fallen after being stabbed. She wondered if his killer had repositioned his arms.
Mr. Flynn had been a hardy man, broad-shouldered, tall, and still muscular. Not in bad shape for eighty-five, she thought. He wore dark trousers, the pockets turned out, as if he’d been searched.
His shoes were black oxfords, buffed to such a shine that she could nearly see her own reflection. She wondered if he’d come home, surprising his attacker, or if he’d welcomed his killer into his home.
His living room had been ransacked, books knocked off shelves, knickknacks strewn on the floor. The sofa cushions had been slashed open, foam stuffing on the floor as well. The man’s bedroom was in a similar state. The drawers in the kitchen had been opened and emptied, their contents dumped on the counters. Flour and sugar containers had been dumped on the kitchen’s tiled floor. Someone had been looking for something and had left a terrible mess.
Kit wondered if they’d found what they’d been looking for. She wondered if Mr. Flynn had fought back.
Kit crouched on the victim’s right side, leaning in so that she could better examine his hands. The knuckles of his right hand were scraped and bruised, but his fingernails were what caught her attention. They were mostly gone, clipped way past the quick, down into the nail bed.
That he’d fought back was a decent assumption, then. His killer hadn’t wanted any evidence to be found under the man’s nails.
Excerpted from Cheater by Karen Rose Copyright © 2024 by Karen Rose. Excerpted by permission of Berkley. All rights reserved.
