Dark Ambitions {Book Review}

Former Army Night Stalker Rick Jordan usually has his camp for foster children to himself during the winter months. But someone has visited recently--leaving a trail of blood. One of the two clues left behind tips Rick off to the identity of his visitor, who soon turns up dead. The police deem it an accident, but Rick isn't convinced. With the help of private investigator Heather Shields, he sets out to decipher the remaining clue. Except someone doesn't want them to succeed--and will stop at nothing to keep them from finding the truth.

With her trademark psychological suspense ratcheting up the tension on every page, bestselling and award-winning author Irene Hannon takes you on a search for a cold-blooded killer with an ambitious goal and deadly intent.

Liked: One of my favorite genres of all time is mystery. Give me some Sherlock Holmes or Fr. Brown and I'll be really happy. I had the privilege to read the book before this one, and I remember liking it, it was a great introduction into this sub-genre of modern-day mysteries, if you will. The last book was solid on the mystery and this one was too. It took me a little to get into, but once I finally got into it, man it was hard to put this book down. Hannon had me turning pages like my life depended on it.

Liked: I really enjoyed this cast of characters. Rick was very honorable, and I really liked Heather. The rest of the characters were very complex, and no secondary characters acted like secondary characters! I especially liked how some of the more shady characters had shades of gray instead of being purely evil or purely good. And then, of course, I love the Treehouse Gang. I was very happy to see the main characters of the last book!

Disliked: I remember one of my main gripes with Hidden Peril was some of the content, and this kinda is true for this one too. While I'm not totally opposed to insta-love, this one was a little much for me. I'll get into more of the content issues in a different section.

Liked/Disliked: Okay, so, the villain was a LITTLE predictable after a while, but what really surprised me is when one person turned out to be a villain and the other didn't. So while I disliked the predictability, I was really happy when I wasn't totally right. And like I mentioned before, none of the bad-guys were totally bad, which really causes you to sympathize with them.

I really liked how the theme of "your past actions can have an effect on your present life" was stressed. How we should always behave righteously in our actions even when we think no one is looking. Like my mom says, integrity is doing the right thing when no one is looking. And while these things may not be explicitly stated, I gleaned that from this and I enjoyed that lesson.

Another thing that I think people can get from the actions of the antagonists is that the ends don't justify the means. Their actions may have had a good cause at the end, but they used bad means. Does the end ever justify the means? No, it doesn't. Because by using dubious means, you've tainted the ends.

-pretty heavy on the physical attraction, to the point of being uncomfortable
-mention of past marriage affairs
-murders
-mentions of people getting shot
-past memories of child abuse
-references to sex (not very detailed or explicit, but you get their meanings)

I liked this one, but not especially and it wasn't a new favorite. So I'm giving this 3 stars

I would recommend this book for people 16+, maybe even older.

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion from Revell Reads. 

How are y'all doing? Sorry I haven't been posting a lot, school and Nano prep have been keeping me busy. Hopefully there will be another post this week. There will be another book review next week, and I'm doing the Shared WIP Tag again this year, which I'm super stoked about!! What did y'all think? Want to read this?