A review by mommasaystoread
Turning Secrets: A Stonechild and Rouleau Mystery by Brenda Chapman

3.0

The subject matter surrounding the case in Turning Secrets is not only disturbing, it's also current in today's world of high crime rates and drug abuse. It's a scary thing to think about the number of young girls that are preyed upon by older, unscrupulous men. That said, I felt like so much more could've been done with this story. There are quite a lot of characters to keep up with, and with so many POV changes throughout the book, I had a hard time getting to know any of the characters enough to really become invested in them. This is my first experience with this series, so I'm going to assume that a lot of character building was done in earlier books and base my rating on the mystery in this one. While it moved a bit slower than I care for, it did hold my interest enough to keep me reading. I wanted to know what happened to Nadia, and I wanted to see how things turned out for Vanessa and for Dawn. The biggest downfall for me was the amount of what felt like filler before getting back to the meat of the story. This one is certainly more procedural than action, which doesn't really pick up until close to the end of the book. That's not a problem for me except that I would've liked a little more on the procedure. I'm sure those who are invested in this series and know the characters will get more out of this one than I did as parts of it did feel like an ongoing story. However, it is what it is, and this is just my 2 cents worth. The story on its own is still worth the read, but I would recommend checking out the earlier books first. All in all, Turning Secrets is a decent crime drama with a thought-provoking case.