As part of my promotion of reasonably priced Kindle reads, here's my review of
"Murder déjà vu" by Polly Iyer
Published 2011
$2.99 Kindle/Indie author

Catherine Coulter, Sandra Brown, move over! Polly Iyer has a winner in this romantic suspense novel.
In Reece Daughtry, Dana Minette finds a man who is as passionate about creating the beautiful fireplaces featured in national magazines as he is about saving wounded and abused animals. But Reece isn't only an artist and builder, he's also a man who's spent fifteen years in prison for a murder he didn't commit. Now he takes work as it pleases him, and living secluded on a piece of land up in the Carolina mountains seems to please him.
Dana Minette lived twenty-some years in her own prison, married to an abusive, manipulative husband who is now the district attorney in a jurisdiction that encompasses three small counties. But when Dana comes calling to see if she can convince Reece to build her one of his rock-wall masterpieces, it is no surprise that these two lonely people should find an instant attraction to each other. The surprise comes when Reece is charged with a copy-cat murder much like the one he was accused of so long ago.
Now it would be natural that the romance will be tested, as it should be, since their relationship is so new. But here is where a clever author will do her job—and this author doesn't disappoint as she weaves in the history of two people who have been forged by fire into new and stronger individuals, the kind of people who are now of a much tougher metal.
The pacing for the suspense picks up as roadblocks are tossed in their way and Reece struggles against an unjust system. It is the allies that helped me root for Reece, like Frank, Reece's old prison buddy, now dying of lung cancer, and Jeraldine, his motherly lawyer (who reminds me of a black Kathy Bates of the TV show Harry's Law) and her very smart investigator, Clarence Wright, and the local sheriff (who has no love for Dana's ex-husband) who works to vindicate Reece.
I couldn't stop reading until the last page. And when I finished, I felt a deep satisfaction… which only served to convince this reader that this is romantic suspense at its finest, and in my opinion, the best of its kind so far in 2012. Read it. You won't be disappointed.

RP Dahlke ( )