Shadow Girl by Gerry Schmitt - #review #giveaway

The brutal murder of a business tycoon leaves Afton Tangler and the Twin Cities reeling, but that’s just the beginning of a gruesome crime spree…

Leland Odin made his fortune launching a home shopping network, but his millions can’t save his life. On the list for a transplant, the ailing businessman sees all hope lost when the helicopter carrying his donor heart is shot out of the sky.


Now with two pilots dead and dozens injured, Afton Tangler, family liaison officer for the Minneapolis Police Department, is drawn into the case. As she and her partner investigate family members and business associates, whoever wants Leland dead strikes again—and succeeds—in a brazen hospital room attack.

The supposedly squeaky clean millionaire has crossed the wrong person—and she’s not finished exacting her revenge. The case explodes into an international conspiracy of unbridled greed and violence. And as Afton gets closer to unearthing the mastermind behind it, she gets closer to becoming collateral damage…

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MY REVIEW

Shadow Girl by Gerry Schmitt is one of the most gripping and chilling books I've read this year.  It starts out with a helicopter carrying a donor heart being blown out of the sky while on approach to the hospital, and ratchets up from there.

I took twice as long to make supper on the day I started reading Shadow Girl than normal, because I was carrying the book with me the whole time!

For being such a savvy businessman, Leland Odin sure didn't use his noggin this time around.  People at 'street level' get assaulted or killed over $20 of drugs, what makes him think he can 'manage' the repercussions coming from hijacking that many kilos???  Or maybe he thinks there won't be any because, after all, he is rich and powerful?

Thank goodness there are people on the law-abiding and law-promoting side of the story as well.  If I were, oh, a couple of decades younger, I would want to be Afton Tangler when I grew up!  She is one bad mamma jamma (and I had to use that term or else the word that starts with "a" which some people pronounce as donkey.) :D  Example, please, you ask?

Afton, single mom and police department employee (although not one who carries a gun) chases after a suspect with a tenacity that surprises even the runner, and they end up in hand-to-hand combat in public, and both come out injured.  Not that I aspire to throw myself day after day into life-threatening situations.  I had a job once where it was my duty to insert myself into some pretty dicey circumstances and lost a little of the fear that comes with them.

And spot on with her reaction in the park when the assailant comes at her again, this time with her children in the vicinity.  I've often said the worst thing someone could do to me would be to mess with one of my kids.  I'd go from zero to full-on MAMA BEAR in the blink of an eye.

I cannot wait to read more of Afton's on-the-job stories!

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MEET THE AUTHOR

Gerry Schmitt is the author of the Afton Tangler Thrillers, and, writing under the pseudonym Laura Childs, the New York Times bestselling author of more than thirty-five novels, the Tea Shop, Scrapbooking, and Cackleberry Club Mysteries. She is the former CEO of her own marketing firm, has won TV and radio awards, and produced two reality TV shows. She and her professor husband enjoy collecting art, travel, and their two Shar-Pei dogs.

Author Links –Webpage – Facebook 

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GIVEAWAY!!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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(Disclosure:  I received a copy of this book from the author and publishers via Great Escapes Virtual Book Tours in exchange for my honest review.)