Thursday, August 21, 2025

Murder Under Construction by Alex Henry

 

Synopsis From Goodreads:

Under the flight path, more than one secret is about to emerge…

On the brink of closing a high-profile terrorism investigation, DI Leon Peterson and his team are pulled off to investigate a cold case, a body found on a site for a new airport hotel. He knows this is political posturing, but it doesn’t make it easier to accept watching another DI muscle in on his team’s work.

For Leon, though, the decades-old cold case turns out to be closer to home in more than one way. His DS, Jasmine Todd, can’t understand his interest in the dead man, and Leon is not sure he wants to talk about his past. One thing he fears is that he may have a very personal connection to the deceased. Will the body finally give him the answers he’s waited for nearly forty years?

Even as some shocking revelations come to light, Leon can’t help being distracted by the terrorism case. He’s convinced the new DI in charge is chasing the wrong lead, and his conscience won’t let him leave it alone. No matter if it risks his career—and his life.

If you couldn’t tell from what I said about my reading habits over the last few years in my review of How to Solve Your Own Murder, I’ve been reading a lot of books that could be classified as romance—despite the vehicle the author chose to develop the romance. It could be a locked-room mystery, a tale of vampires or shifters, a story set on a ranch or at a rodeo, or, in the case of Murder Under Construction, a police procedural.

What I thoroughly enjoyed was how little the romance was the focus of the story. Instead, the author chose to center the mystery itself and Leon’s internal personal life to propel the narrative forward. I relished every second I spent with Leon as a character—getting to know his conflicted relationship with his family, right down to his grudging love of the two cats sharing his space. I enjoyed the way his mind works as he puzzles out the targets of the bombings or why there’s a decades-old dead body in a condemned pub.

It’s in Leon that this book truly shines, and why I’ll continue the series. The mysteries themselves are simple without being boring. I just wish there were a little more complexity involved, but I understand that with two separate investigations, neither was able to be fleshed out as much as I would have preferred. I plan on seeing how the second book goes before I start getting too picky about how the author handles the mystery element.

As for the romance itself, it doesn’t even begin until the last few pages. While I’m curious to see if it develops further, it won’t be what keeps me turning the next page. It feels like the romance will remain in the background, which I’m more than okay with. I’ll wait to see whether it unfolds more in the vein of the Dave Brandstetter or Evander Mills books, or if Leon’s love life will chart its own course forward.

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Murder Under Construction by Alex Henry

  Synopsis From Goodreads: Under the flight path, more than one secret is about to emerge… On the brink of closing a high-profile terrorism...