HALF-TOLD TRUTHS, Amy O. Lewis’ sequel to A Mountain of Evidence and the second book in the Colorado Skies series, finds Kim Jackson on the run. Framed for a corporate fraud she uncovered, perpetrated by a boss, and then, worse, for murder, she quickly learns how far her former colleagues are willing to go to hide the way they’ve exploited their company when a colleague is killed. As a result she leaves, acquires that fake identity, and finds herself living with and caring for Lena, a disabled former cop. Living paycheck to paycheck, Kim tries to stay under the radar, but when someone she suspects was looking for her is killed crossing the road in her new hiding place in the small town of Durango, Colorado, she goes into high alert.
The thing is, Kim isn’t very good at hiding away. In fact, she’s fascinated by the shooting that led to Lena’s disability. Kim’s ex-police landlord was shot from a distance by an unidentified figure and paralyzed. Our runaway first-person lead quickly becomes heavily involved, with the help of Lena, in investigating both her own past difficulties, and, still more prominently, what happened to Lena. As she begins to ask questions, it becomes clear that there are dark forces operating within Durango, as characters such as a local high-profile athlete and his shop come to the forefront, while Lena’s assistance has Kim looking under rocks that are best left undisturbed. In fact, as Kim slowly comes clean to Lena, the relationship between the pair of them, uneasy and difficult at times, becomes the forefront of the text. Lena agrees to help Kim in her investigation, using her police skills. Kim quickly starts digging where she shouldn’t, however, causing fear to come to the fore. The result is, in effect, an investigative narrative on people being other than what they seem, with two or three different core storylines playing out alongside each other. It relies heavily on the development of the two characters and the relationship between them. In terms of actual action, while the story flows, much of what happens in the middle half or so of the book involves developments in reader’s knowledge over another evening meal or investigative discussion rather than more dramatic scenes.
As the characters develop, it becomes clear that small town life isn’t the ideal that it seems, and that there is a whole lot going on beneath the surface. With an appealing central character who’s liable to look the wrong way, yet instantly deserving of our sympathy, it’s hard not to get drawn in. That said, Kim is so lacking in street smarts, especially for a runaway, that at times, as the reader, you want to shake her. In its lower ebbs, HALF-TOLD TRUTHS can feel plodding and its lead character somewhat misguided. All in, though, for those who enjoy slow-building and multifaceted mysteries, there’s plenty of shades of color and well-formed characters here to recommend.
A sometimes plodding, woven narrative of several different investigative storylines, HALF-TOLD TRUTHS by Amy O. Lewis takes moments of struggle and drama and a nose for colorful character development to build a subtle, rolling plot.
~James Hendicott for IndieReader