Wrong Alibi by Christina Dodd
Book Summary
Wrong Alibi by Christina Dodd has
Evelyn Jones hiding out at the Midnight Sun Fishing Camp in a remote part of
Alaska after being convicted of the murder of a mother and small boy as well as
embezzlement. A twist of fate allowed Evelyn
to escape but she suffered severe damage.
She is now going by the name of Petie and spends eight months of the
year alone. She uses the time in isolation
to learn new skills which allows her to track down the man who set her up. When someone close to her ends up in
jeopardy, it is time for Evelyn to get justice for herself and the others the
man has wronged.
New York Times bestselling author Christina Dodd writes “edge-of-the-seat suspense” (Iris Johansen) with “brilliantly etched characters, polished writing, and unexpected flashes of sharp humor that are pure Dodd” (ALA Booklist). Her fifty-eight books have been called "scary, sexy, and smartly written" by Booklist and, much to her mother's delight, Dodd was once a clue in the Los Angeles Times crossword puzzle. Enter Christina’s worlds and join her mailing list at www.christinadodd.com.
Author Links
Author Website: https://www.christinadodd.com/
TWITTER: @ChristinaDodd
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ChristinaDoddFans
Insta: @ChristinaDoddBooks
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/12695.Christina_Dodd
My Thoughts
Wrong Alibi by Christina Dodd is
the beginning of The Alaskan Mystery series.
I was eagerly anticipating reading this new suspense novel and I was not
disappointed. The characters are
multifaceted, and the plot is complex.
Evelyn “Petie” Jones gets a chance to start over after serving time in a
juvenile facility. She is eighteen with
limited options. Evelyn is offered a job
in Alaska and she takes it upon the advice of her counselor. Unfortunately, Evelyn trusts the wrong person
and ends up accused of a double homicide along with embezzlement. Evelyn is convicted and sentenced to life in
prison. A freak of nature allows Evelyn to escape and hide as Petie. She will never be free, though, until she
finds the man who set her up and prove he committed the evil deeds she has been
convicted of committing. Wrong Alibi is
a captivating story. It is a page turner
that is full of twists, turns, and surprises.
I loved the intricate mystery as well as the action and tension. This was a fun whodunit. There are a variety of unique characters and
I enjoyed the hint of paranormal. I am
eager to read the next book in this exciting new series.
ALASKA
Midnight Sun Fishing Camp
Katchabiggie
Lodge
Eight years ago
JANUARY.
Five
and a half hours a day when the sun rose above the horizon.
Storm
clouds so thick, daylight never penetrated, and night reigned eternal.
Thirty
below zero Fahrenheit.
The
hurricane-force wind wrapped frigid temperatures around the lodge, driving
through the log cabin construction and the steel roof, ignoring the insulation,
creeping inch by inch into the Great Room where twenty-year-old Petie huddled
on a love seat, dressed in a former guest’s flannel pajamas and bundled in a
Pendleton Northern Lights wool blanket. A wind like this pushed snow through
the roof vents, and she knew as soon as the storm stopped, she’d be up in the
attic shoveling it out.
Or not. Maybe first the ceiling would fall in
on top of her.
Who would know? Who would care?
The
storm of the century, online news called it, before the internet disappeared in
a blast that blew out the cable like a candle.
For
a second long, dark winter, she was the only living being tending the Midnight
Sun cabins and the lodge, making sure the dark, relentless Alaska winter didn’t
do too much damage and in the spring the camp could open to enthusiastic
fishermen, corporate team builders and rugged individualists.
Alone
for eight months of the year. No Christmas. No New Year’s. No Valentine’s Day.
No any day, nothing interesting, just dark dark dark isolation and fear that
she would die out here.
With the internet gone, she waited for the
next inevitable event.
The
lights went out.
On each of the four walls, a small,
battery-charged nightlight came on to battle feebly against the darkness.
Outside, the storm roared. Inside, cold swallowed the heat with greedy
appetite.
Petie sat and stared into a dark so black it
hurt her eyes. And remembered…
There, against the far back wall of the
basement, in the darkest corner, white plastic covered…something. Slowly, Petie
approached, driven by a terrible fear. She stopped about three feet away,
leaned forward and reached out, far out, to grasp the corner of the plastic,
pull it back, and see—
With
a gasp, Petie leaped to her feet.
No.
Just no. She couldn’t—wouldn’t—replay those memories again.
She
tossed the blanket onto the floor and groped for the flashlights on the table
beside her: the big metal one with a hefty weight and the smaller plastic
headlamp she could strap to her forehead. She clicked on the big one and shone
it around the lodge, reassuring herself no one and nothing was here. No ghosts,
no zombies, no cruel people making ruthless judgments about the gullible young
woman she had been.
Armed
with both lights, she moved purposefully out of the Great Room, through the
massive kitchen and toward the utility room.
The
door between the kitchen and the utility room was insulated, the first barrier
between the lodge and the bitter, rattling winds. She opened that door, took a
breath of the even chillier air, stepped into the utility room and shut herself
in. There she donned socks, boots, ski pants, an insulated shirt, a
cold-weather blanket cut with arm holes, a knit hat and an ancient,
full-length, seal-skin, Aleut-made coat with a hood. She checked the outside
temperature.
Colder
now—forty below and with the wind howling, the wind chill would be sixty below,
seventy below…who knew? Who cared? Exposed skin froze in extreme cold and add
the wind chill… She wrapped a scarf around her face and the back of her neck.
Then unwrapped it to secure the headlamp low on her forehead. Then wrapped
herself up again, trying to cover as much skin as she could before she faced
the punishing weather.
She pointed her big flashlight at the generator checklist posted on the wall and read:
Hawley’s reasons why the generator will fail
to start. The generator is new and well-tested, so the problem is:
1. LOOSE
BATTERY CABLE
Solution: Tighten.
2. CORRODED
BATTERY CONNECTION
Solution: Use metal terminal battery
brush to clean connections and reattach.
3. DEAD
BATTERY
Solution: Change battery in the autumn to avoid ever having to change it in the middle of a major fucking winter storm.
If
she wasn’t standing there alone in the dark in the bitter cold, she would have
grinned. The owner of the fishing camp, Hawley Foggo, taught his employees
Hawley’s Rules. He had them for every occurrence of the fishing camp, and that
last sounded exactly like him.
The
generator used a car battery, and as instructed, in the autumn she had changed
it. This was her second year dealing with the battery, and she felt secure
about her work.
So
probably this failure was a loose connection or corrosion. Either way, she
could fix it and save the lodge from turning into a solid ice cube that
wouldn’t thaw until spring.
That
was, after all, her job.
She
shivered.
So
much better than her last job, the one that led to her conviction for a
gruesome double murder.
“Okay, Petie, let’s grab that metal battery
cleaner thingy and get the job done.” Which sounded pretty easy, when she
talked to herself about it, but when she pulled on the insulated ski gloves,
they limited her dexterity.
Out
of the corner of her eye, a light blinked out.
She
looked back into the lodge’s Great Room. The nightlights were failing, and soon
she really would be alone in the absolute darkness, facing the memories of that
long-ago day in the basement.
Good
incentive to hurry.
She
grabbed the wire battery connection cleaner thingy and moved to the outer door.
There
she paused and pictured the outdoor layout.
A loosely built lean-to protected the
generator from the worst of the weather while allowing the exhaust to escape.
That meant she wasn’t stepping out into the full force of the storm; she would
be as protected as the generator itself. Which was apparently not well enough
since the damned thing wasn’t working.
She gathered her fortitude and eased the outer
door open.
The
wind caught it, yanked it wide and dragged her outside and down the steps. She
hung on to the door handle, flailed around on the frozen ground, and when she
regained her footing, she used all her strength to shove the door closed again.
Then
she was alone, outside, in a killer storm, in the massive, bleak wilderness
that was Alaska.
Wrong Alibi can be purchased from Amazon*, Harlequin, Books-a-Million, Barnes and Noble, Walmart, Google, Kobo, and iBooks. You can find Christina Dodd's other novels here. If you enjoy your visit to Rockin, Alaska in Wrong Alibi, check out Right Motive. Thank you for reading my review today. I will be back tomorrow with Neighbors by Danielle Steel. I hope that each of you have a joyful day. Take care, be kind, and Happy Reading!
Kris
The Avid Reader
*This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
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