Rough Country by T.J. Brearton – A Damppebbles Review Tour

• Title: Rough Country
• Author: T.J. Brearton
• Publisher: Inkubator
• Genre: Crime Thriller
• Pages: 318
• Format: Kindle Edition
• Rating: 4/5

Many thanks to Emma at Damppebbles Blog Tours and Inkubator Books for providing me with a free copy of Rough Country in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Trigger Warnings: Violence, Murder, Rape, Drug Use, Cult, Suicide

PreOrder Now: Amazon US | Amazon UK

Rough Country Book Blurb

A young girl murdered. A town with a dark secret.
 
A young girl, Kasey, is murdered in the woods of northern New York, a strange symbol carved into her stomach.
 
Investigator Reed Raleigh, Major Crimes, is tasked with finding the killer.
 
Reed has his own troubles. He’s in therapy, divorced, estranged from his son. But he desperately needs to solve this case – his own stepdaughter vanished when she was a teenager and Reed knows all about the agony of having no closure. No way is he letting Kasey’s mother go through that.
 
But as Reed begins to dig, the case grows ever more complex. Why is Kasey’s boyfriend acting so strangely? And why is her mother lying to the police?
 
As evidence of Kasey’s bizarre secret life starts to emerge, Reed realises this case isn’t just about a dead girl. There’s something much bigger at play in this small rural town, a decades old secret that needs to be protected. At any cost.

Blurb Provided by Inkubator Books

My Review

Rough Country is one of those crime thrillers that stays with you. The emotions run high in this novel, and the twists and turns leave you guessing until the very end.

I enjoyed this book a lot. Completely glued to my seat, I was equal parts thrilled and frightened at the same time. T.J. Brearton has a way with words, and his storytelling style is easy to read. 

My only complaint is that there were so many characters introduced at once that I had a hard time keeping them straight. While the descriptions of the characters are there, I couldn’t bring up a mental picture of them. While this did diminish my reading experience some, it wasn’t enough that I didn’t love it. I still mark it up with one of the best of the year.

I am happy to award Rough Country 4 out of 5 stars. Anyone with a love of crime thrillers will find something to love in this novel. There are some dark subjects, but Brearton deals with them compassionately.

About T.J. Brearton

T.J. Brearton’s books have reached half a million readers around the world and have topped the Amazon charts in the US, UK, Canada, and Australia. A graduate of the New York Film Academy in Manhattan, Brearton first worked in film before focusing on novels. His books are visually descriptive with sharp dialog and underdog heroes. When not writing, Brearton does whatever his wife and three children tell him to do. They live happily in the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York. Yes, there are bears in the Adirondacks. But it’s really quite beautiful when you’re not running for your life.

T.J. is the author of Into Darkness, Road to Mercy and other crime thrillers. ROUGH COUNTRY will be his third novel published with  Inkubator Books.

Facebook | Website