Review copy was received from Publisher. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Tell No Lies by Allison Brennan Narrator: Suzanne Gutierrez
Series: Quinn & Costa #2
Published by Harlequin Audio, HarperAudio on March 30, 2021
Genres: Mystery, Thriller, Suspense
Length: 12 hours, 27 minutes
Format: Audiobook
Source: Publisher
Goodreads
Amazon, Audible, Libro.fm, Barnes & Noble, Apple
The unsolved murder of a young activist leads to the discovery of much darker crimes in New York Times best-selling author Allison Brennan’s latest compelling thriller to feature the young, edgy detective Kara Quinn and the loner FBI agent Matt Costa. This time they work to uncover possible ties to a high-stakes cartel in the Southwest desert.
Something mysterious is killing the wildlife in the mountains just south of Tucson. When a college intern turned activist sets out to collect her own evidence, she, too, ends up dead. Local law enforcement is slow to get involved. That’s when the mobile FBI unit goes undercover to infiltrate the town and its copper refinery in search of possible leads.
Quinn and Costa find themselves scouring the desolate landscape, which keeps revealing clues to something much darker — greed, child trafficking, and more death. As the body count adds up, it’s clear they have stumbled onto much more than they bargained for. Now they must figure out who is at the heart of this mayhem and stop them before more innocent lives are lost.
I was excited to try this author for the first time last year with The Third to Die which was the beginning of the new Quinn & Costa series.  I loved it and of course continued. Kara Quinn is not able to go back to LAPD because her cover was blown and now the bad guys want to kill her. They already killed her partner. She was staying with her grandma outside Spokane, Washington when she discovered a body and ended up working with an FBI team.
In Tell No Lies, Kara is on the new mobile response FBI team and working a case south of Tucson. I love Kara as she is smart and highly skilled. She’s undercover again as a bartender. The initial case was about a college student murdered when she was trying to find contaminated water which was killing wildlife in the area.  The poisoning was suspected it might come from the copper mine which might be dumping its waste in the desert.
Matt is the leader of a new FBI team who travels the county to help out smaller local law enforcement on more complicated cases. He and Kara had a brief sexual relationship after the last case, as they didn’t know they would ever work together again. Now she is on his team.  It is hard for her to take direction from him and he is a little too protective with her. She has over a decade in undercover work.
The world-building and characters are well written. I loved the layers and complexity of criminal actions and the investigations to try to figure out what was happening. The characters felt realistic with authentic emotional responses. It was thrilling with people in real danger. Some of the criminals seemed obvious but not all of them. But not everyone is who they seem, including Kara.  I loved this and can’t wait for more.
Narration:
The narrator, Suzanne Guterriez Fortin, also narrated the first book. I thought she did a fine performance with easy to understand voices which added the right emotional tone. The male voices have a nice, husky timbre. The female voices are more normal. I listened at my usual 1.5x speed.
Listen to a clip:
About Allison Brennan
New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Allison Brennan believes that life is too short to be bored, so she had five children and writes three books a year. Allison recently relocated from Northern California to Arizona with her husband and two youngest children.
Allison has penned more than three dozen thrillers and many short stories. COLD SNAP was a finalist for Best Thriller in the Thriller Awards (ITW) and FEAR NO EVIL (2007) and COMPULSION (2015) won the Daphne du Maurier award. Allison has been nominated multiple times for RWA’s Best Romantic Suspense award, and the Kiss of Death’s Daphne award. She currently writes the Lucy Kincaid/Sean Rogan thriller series, and is launching the Mobile Response Team series in February 2020.
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I read all types of books but my favorites are urban fantasy and romantic suspense.I like some romance and some action / adventure / mystery in everything.I like sex in my books but please, only between TWO people.Intimate conversation is equally important to the sex in a book.It lets me see the characters.The other thing I enjoy is humor.
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Reading this book contributed to these challenges:
- C21-Spring
This book sounds like a winner!
Yes I think the whole series is a winner.
I’m glad this series is holding up. I love when two characters with a romantic past have to work together?
Well they have a sexual history but not so much on the romance. But it was consensual and enjoyed by them.
As you know I really enjoyed this one, too! I’m looking forward to progressing relationship between Matt and Kara. Great review, Anne!
Thanks Rachel! I love this series.
this sounds exactly like my favorite kind of book. i am VERY curios about Kara…
I love Kara. She was raised by grifters and is a master at undercover. It’s masterful.
Excellent review, Anne? I was able to get this from the library and can’t wait to get started with the series.
Thank you Jonetta. I hope you love this series as much as I do.
I really loved the first one and need to make the time to keep going with this one.
You do because I think you will love this one too.
This sounds like a fun series. I love it when characters feel realistic.
I’m loving it. It’s dark and gritty though.