Don't Look for Me by Mason Cross / Review by Amy Nygaard
Don't Look for Me
By Mason Cross
Carter Blake Book 4
Pegasus Books
$25.95
ISBN 978-1681776286
Publication Date: January 2, 2018
Book of the Day
Don’t Look For Me opens with an unknown woman hiding in a safe house, where we find her restless and angry with the man who sent her there. Deciding not to remain, she leaves behind only a note: “Don’t look for me.”
Six years later, some-time government agent Carter Blake’s warm, sunny getaway is interrupted by an e-mail from his vanished girlfriend’s address. The woman behind the keyboard isn’t his missing woman, however, and he travels to Las Vegas to unravel the reasons precipitating the message.
Amicably divorced journalist & author Sarah Blackwell was Rebecca Smith’s neighbor and friend. When Rebecca’s husband, Dom, shows up suddenly to retrieve her from a neighborhood baby shower, Sarah is troubled. Troubled segues into alarm when Dom and Rebecca’s house is empty the next morning. After witnessing a break-in to the Smith’s deserted home, Sarah is unhappy with the police’s brush-off response and enters the house herself with a spare key. She discovers a strange journal, with a list of multiple names, and an odd page directing the reader to use a particular e-mail address in case of emergency. The day after Sarah sends her hesitant e-mail, Carter Blake arrives on her doorstep.
Between the two of them, they discover that “Rebecca Smith” is really Carter’s long-gone girlfriend, Carol Langford, and a hit man is on her tail. Finally disregarding her terse command of “Don’t look for me,” Carter and Sarah catch up to Carol/Rebecca, and her husband, crossing paths with not only the hitman but the group who hired him.
A jewel heist, a dirty cop, Vegas mob, and more lead the reader with Carter to the underbelly of Las Vegas, abandoned Arizona ghost towns, and rabbit trails in between. I’d not encountered Mason Cross or his Carter Blake series previously, but I’ll be checking out the earlier books for Carter’s backstory.
Amy Nygaard - I am a lifelong lover of words, and reading has been my passion since childhood. After years of editing work and teaching grammar and writing, I fell in love with writing myself. I have several adult suspense manuscripts completed, a middle-grade boy's mystery first-of-series, and the framework of a separate middle-grade mystery/adventure series. I've attended multiple writing conferences around the country, pitching agents, making new friends, and learning all I can about the world of writing and publishing.