In the Shadow of Evil by Robin Caroll

It all starts with a a dead body in a burning house. Well, thus starts the catastrophe anyways. Not terribly uncommon, but the house is for the unfortunate and the source of an award; and the body is that of the inspector. Contractor Layla Taylor is thrust along with Detective Maddox Bishop into a chaotic reality where trust is deceitful, hope is weakness, and peace is mockery. Layla can hardly doubt that she is living in the shadow of evil.

When I first started this book, I kept wondering, how is this the shadow of evil? But soon it became evident; this book gets intense! Smoothly written with a fluent story line, it was a great read that was hard to put down. Construction and Louisiana were two foreign subjects to me, so that was an interesting background in my eyes. I was a little disappointing though that there wasn't much culture. I also must note that there are two over used phrases that I assume were meant to add character but came across otherwise. As the book progresses, they do become more scarce. All in all, excellent book and I can't wait to read it's two siblings. Great job, Robin.