Title: Murder at Haven’s Rock
Author: Kelley Armstrong
Series: Casey Duncan/Haven’s Rock
Source: Netgalley. I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Genre: Thriller, mystery.
Explicit? No.
Trigger Warning: Murder, depiction of killing wounds.
Summary: New York Times bestselling author Kelley Armstrong’s Rockton Novels had one of the most unique towns in crime fiction. Murder at Haven’s Rock is a spinoff, a fresh start… with a few new dangers that threaten everything before it even begins.

Haven’s Rock, Yukon. Population: 0

Deep in the Yukon wilderness, a town is being built. A place for people to disappear, a fresh start from a life on the run. Haven’s Rock isn’t the first town of this kind, something detective Casey Duncan and her husband, Sheriff Eric Dalton, know first hand. They met in the original town of Rockton. But greed and deception led the couple to financing a new refuge for those in need. This time around, they get to decide which applicants are approved for residency.

There’s only one rule in Haven’s Rock: stay out of the forest. When two of the town’s construction crew members break it and go missing, Casey and Eric are called in ahead of schedule to track them down. When a body is discovered, well hidden with evidence of foul play, Casey and Eric must find out what happened to the dead woman, and locate the still missing man. The woman stumbled upon something she wasn’t supposed to see, and the longer Casey and Eric don’t know what happened, the more danger everyone is in.

I am not sure what I was really worried about with this book, as the beginning of a new series with some of the same beloved, established characters. This book opened up a whole new world, not all that dissimilar from Rockton but with its own dangers present and new life breathed into every moment.

Casey and Dalton remain that heart of the books, and I wouldn’t have it any other way, but with April, Anders and some new folks along for the ride it was just the right mix of new and old to keep it captivating.

The plot rolls slowly, but I am certainly not complaining about that because it is very, very good. I can’t wait for the next book, and the one after that and the one after that because these characters have come to be steadfast companions whose trials and tribulations I care about. This book will help those characters grow, I think, without allowing them to become stagnant and overused.

Haven’s Rock is fascinating to me, because it is new. And I find myself wondering if it will end up truly becoming a Haven for anyone or if more death and destruction will be coming.