The Last Place You Look by Kristen Lepionka

 The Last Place You Look (Roxane Weary #1) by Kristen Lepionka - 323 pages

⭐⭐⭐⭐✰

Sarah Cook, a beautiful blonde teenager, disappeared fifteen years ago, the same night her parents were brutally murdered in their suburban Ohio home. Her boyfriend Brad Stockton - black and from the wrong side of the tracks - was convicted of the murders and sits on death row, though he always maintained his innocence. With his execution only weeks away, his devoted sister, insisting she has spotted Sarah at a local gas station, hires PI Roxane Weary to look again at the case.

Reeling from the recent death of her cop father, Roxane finds herself drawn to the story of Sarah's vanishing act, especially when she thinks she's linked Sarah's disappearance to one of her father's unsolved murder cases involving another teen girl. Despite her self-destructive tendencies, Roxane starts to hope that maybe she can save Brad's life and her own.

I really liked the story and am interested in reading the 2nd book in the series. She could have included more hints about who did it and how Roxane put it together. There were also a few scenes that could have been shortened or excluded. But, especially for a debut novel, she did a good job of building a main character trying to find her own way in spite of the influence of several strong personalities and her own demons.

The Last Place You Look (Roxane Weary, #1) by Kristen Lepionka

 The Last Place You Look (Roxane Weary, #1) by Kristen Lepionka-322 pages

Roxane Weary's policeman father recently died on the job and she's in a bad way emotionally. However, she soon gets drawn into an old case in which her father was involved. Brad Stockton is on death row for killing his missing girlfriend's parents. Brad's sister hires Roxane to investigate when she thinks she spots Sarah Cook, Brad's missing girlfriend. When Roxane begins to investigate she finds out that other women were kidnapped and/or murdered and one of them is tied to her father's old case. Is Sarah Cook still alive after 15 years? Who kidnapped her and murdered or kidnapped the other girls? This is a little slow in the beginning and gets a bit bogged down at times, but it's a pretty good read. I rate it 3 out of 5 stars.