when the waters get murky

Audrey Collet is a mother of twins and a partner in a discovery agency, where she and Rosa help law firms track down information to help in their cases. Audrey is the computer expert, a hacker since she’d gotten bored with gaming as a teenager while Rosa does more of the hands-on investigating. So when Audrey’s ex Tyson, called and asked her to come to St. Barth’s to help him figure out who is blackmailing him, she is his only choice. Because not only is investigating her job, she’s also privy to many of his secrets, including the one that has the potential to blow up his latest deal and his entire company.

Tyson has created a multi-billion dollar company based on his ability to turn salt water into potable water with efficiency. They are preparing to open a new site on St. Barth’s, the Caribbean island that is home to a great deal of wealth. But a foot has turned up in the Everglades, and now everything is at stake.

The foot, a human foot, once belonged to Ian Kelly, who had lived in a trailer behind the house of Tyson and his brother Cody. Ian had been a drug dealer who had gone missing the summer Audrey and Tyson had dated. But there was more going on back then than just a little bit of drugs, and Audrey and Tyson both know that things could go badly for them if the police start digging around Ian’s disappearance.

But when Audrey arrives at his villa on the island and gets to know those Tyson has surrounded himself with, she realizes that there are several people under his roof that could mean him harm. Add to that Tyson’s increasing paranoia, and Audrey knows that she will have a difficult time figuring out who is it that is blackmailing him. Between Tyson’s double-dealings and secret deals, his wife, his business partner, or his brother could be gunning for him. And then there’s his butler Laurent. Laurent seems to know a lot of what’s going on, which Audrey finds surprising, because Tyson confides in others so rarely. Audrey can’t deny that she is drawn to Laurent, but she thinks it would be unwise to trust him, especially since she is there with some pretty big secrets of her own.

But when Tyson is killed during a scuba dive gone wrong, Audrey is faced with even more questions, and she’s even more vulnerable to exposure. She has to figure out who is was who killed Tyson and who was blackmailing him in order to get back to her life in the States, and to her twin boys, safe and sound. But then the killer turns their sights on her, and she has to figure out who to trust to save herself.

Sunburned is a white-hot thriller about the dealings of the wealthy and how even they have to deal with the secrets in their past. The setting in St. Barth’s makes for a gorgeous backdrop for this murder mystery, and the story is filled with crazy twists. It’s an exciting beach read for thriller fans, with a side of romance and layers of secrets and hidden agendas. I loved reading Sunburned, and while I couldn’t get to the beach myself to enjoy it, I did bask in that Caribbean flavor and had a lot of fun with this story.

Egalleys for Sunburned were provided by Bantam through NetGalley, with many thanks, but the opinions are mine