Their Burning Graves by Helen Phifer

Title: Their Burning Graves

Author: Helen Phifer

Series: Detective Morgan Brookes # 8

Genre: Mystery / Thriller

Release Date: December 19, 2022

Length: 265 pages

Publisher: Bookouture

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****Review****

All those readers who enjoy joining literary detectives and investigating wild and unusual crimes will be delighted by the latest installment in the Morgan Brookes detective series.

A happy family with a perfect life and love that connects them. A bloodthirsty killer who ends their lives most brutally and places them in burning graves. The death of that respectable family and a future interrupted in a moment of complete senselessness is terrifying. Scenes that have the power to terrify even the bravest person and clues that lead nowhere. A trace here, another trace there, impatience that culminates and they are not even close to the killer. Will Detective Morgan Brooks and her team be able to solve this mystery? Will the detectives be quick enough to save future victims who are running out of time?

Crime thrillers are somehow more present on my reading list lately. Although I was a die-hard romance fan, I watched a few TV crime series and realized that maybe these thrillers would give me the needed freshness in reading that I kind of needed lately. And believe me, I was not wrong. I enjoyed Their Burning Graves by Helen Phifer a lot.

This is my first time reading a book by this author and I enjoyed this heart-stopping read. For me, a solid thriller doesn’t just mean an unexpected twists and unpredictable ending. More important to me is psychological and deep storytelling, through which we, the readers, study the inner world of the characters. Their Burning Graves is just like that. A solid plot and well-built characters guide us through the story as we try together to find the ferocious killer.

Morgan as the central character in this story is beautifully captured, her thoughts are so palpable and her actions are meant to draw the reader even further into the story. The romantic in me also has to mention her relationship with Ben. From the scant descriptions, it can be concluded that it is a true union based on understanding, respect, and honest feelings, but honestly, I probably lack the knowledge of the previous parts to be able to experience it and fully understand it.

In the beginning, the author has thrown in a fantastic prologue, which terrifies and confuses us from the very beginning. An unfortunate event, seemingly unrelated to the actions in this book, keeps coming back to our minds, forcing us to come up with a million scenarios of how it’s all connected. Who is who? Why was that prologue inserted in the beginning?

The first part is quite drawn out and somehow leaves the opportunity to put the book down. But that’s why the second part is simply the realization of all readers’ dreams. Perfectly fitted without unnecessary long descriptions, but with well-thought-out sentences, it captures that unpleasant atmosphere and the true features of the characters.

What bothered me a bit as I turned the pages were the inserted details from previous books in the series that I did not know of. Again and again I crossed references that surely carry some meaning and background, but they just created questions in my head. Surely those who have read the previous parts do not have such a problem.

All in all, Their Burning Graves by Helen Phifer is a great hair-raising rollercoaster where you will devour the pages voraciously, unraveling the mystery along with the characters. Recommended by me, worth a read!