Dangerous Secrets

Dangerous Secrets: Susan Hunter

Leah Nash is stuck between a rock and a hard place as a murder and the accused is someone close to her and the Uncle of her friend Miguel. Things spiral out of control when she tries to connect with her best friend and Detective David Cooper only to learn he has married her favorite nemesis Rebecca and this is where it gets dicey and really intricate.

Holly Mason is the creator of SweetMeets an online dating service that handles sugar daddies and sugar babies. Someone dislikes her company and their services and decided to eliminate her completely.

Leah Nash is a well =known author and has been asked to help out in solving cases since working for the local newspaper which happens to be housed in her building. However, Rebecca her former boss, has a serious problem with her since David Cooper, her soon to be husband, is Leah’s best friend and she aims to destroy it first had. When her friend Miguel finds Holly Mason’s body in his apartment that she rented for a week, the end result is that they arrest his Uncle Craig for the murder thinking even though he went there to repair something in the apartment, when he saw her business card things went out of control. His daughter Sophia was one of her clients and he blames Holly for turning her into more than an escort. Being a teenager made it harder as Sophia received several tongue lashings and more from her father until he realized that he had to come to terms with her choices and her. Lydia his wife is supportive but when he’s arrested, Miguel turns to Leah and the lawyer that they used calls in Gabe to take on the case and here is where things get even more interesting.

Online dating is not the most secure way to meet someone but in this case SweetMeets was more than that. Holly Mason owns SweetMeets and it targets college-age sugar babies and fun for sugar daddies. But someone claims to have seen Craig, Miguel’s uncle at the scene twice and his car was supposedly there too and his fingerprints on the murder weapon.

Secrets are often hidden within the recesses and minds of those that don’t want them shared. But, what happens when someone finds out things about you that they would prefer remained dormant like a silent volcano before it erupts?

When Miguel’s uncle is arrested for the murder of Holly Mason, Leah is called to help along with him in order to clear his uncle. But, that might sound routine but nothing that involves Leah is ever routine. Added in she learns some hard and fast information about her former boss Rebecca Hatfield and if she divulges it to Coop their friendship might be severed. Himmel is a small town filled with those that have much to hide, someone who identifies Craig’s car at the crime scene, someone who thinks she sees him twice and the situation gets more difficult and tangled up as evidence comes to light but not where you might think or how.

Learning more about Holly Mason, Leah finds out her connection to Rebecca and a man named Duffy that went to the same college as both Holly and Rebecca. Digging deeper into SweetMeets she learns that someone hiding right in front of her is a client of this company and even more someone was blackmailing Holly and writing a book about SweetMeets. No one knew that Holly worked as an escort in college. Her SweetMeets Company was in financial trouble. She had a client that was blackmailing a sugar daddy leading to bad publicity and the book. Holly might have tried to blackmail Rebecca. What else did she know about Rebecca and her past? Miguel and Leah ask Gabe why they don’t have the phone records and the client list but will those be forthcoming? Someone used a burner phone to contact someone but whom did Rebecca call? Harry Turnbull claimed to have seen something but he’s a vagrant of some type but did he really see something to help?

When Leah decides to interview the elderly neighbor things take on many different turns but did she really see Craig’s car and did she really see him? As we learn more about the blackmail scheme, who else was involved and why Mike Chapman did not want to stay on the payroll of SweetMeets to do their website, things get more dangerous, Charlie tries to uncover another secret and someone else is bound to pay a heavy price but who? There are many others that play a part but April seems to fall apart with the death of Rebecca and being alone does not help her. Father Lindstrom is the only person that seems to be able to center Leah and asks her the right questions in order for her to understand the correct solutions. But, when Rebecca is found dead and her secrets told Coop decides to distance himself from Leah leaving her feeling alone and cold.
A simple phone call might catch a killer and Leah and Miguel decide to use an app on a phone that might allow them to send a message without being detected and who shows up you won’t believe or why? Family love, loyalties, deceit, distrust, betrayals, lies and deadly secrets are at the heart of this complex novel. Someone stopped by the kitty boutique owned by Davina and told someone that Holly Mason rented Miguel’s house for a weekend and we was totally pumped and excited that her D-list celebrating sighting? But whom did she tell and how would this help catch a killer?

There is a song titled A Town Without Pity and Himmel and the people within this town seem just that way as their empathy for each other does not exist and everyone including Leah has he/her own agenda.

“If we stop to gaze upon a star
People talk about how bad we are
Ours is not an easy age
We’re like tigers in a cage
What a town without pity can doHow can we keep love alive
How can anything survive
When these little minds tear you in two?
What a town without pity can do

How can we keep love alive
How can anything survive
When these little minds tear you in two?
What a town without pity can do

No, it isn’t very pretty what a town without pity can do.” These words remind me of what happened in this novel and the complexity of what author Susan Hunter is relating to readers as one secret, one hidden truth can destroy more lives and you too can be a victim what a town without pity can do when you have Dangerous Secrets to hide. What is the final fate for Coop, Leah and Miguel? What is the fate of the newspaper when the owners want to sell? Find out when the author pens the next chapter in the lives of these characters.