Book Review: Lot’s Return to Sodom by Sandra Brannan
Disclaimer: I received a download of this book through a Goodreads Giveaway to facilitate writing this review. No other compensation was offered or requested.
Following the events of the previous book, In the Belly of Jonah, mine operator Liv Bergen is mostly healed up, but taking the last bit of her recuperation in her family’s hometown of Rapid City, South Dakota. As it happens, this visit coincides with the annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally. Liz witnesses a ritual performed by the Lucifer’s Lot outlaw motorcycle gang that ends up with someone dead.
And that’s not the only corpse around. The girlfriend of Liz’s brother Jens turns up with her head bashed in not too far from where Lucifer’s Lot are camped. The leader of the gang, Mully, is the top suspect (and the one the FBI favors) but it could also be Jens, or the woman’s creepily obsessed boss, or her missing little sister Char, or…someone else.
Special Agent Streeter Pierce is called in to investigate on the tenuous thread that this may be connected to a serial killer case he worked on years before. He and Liv have met before, though she doesn’t remember it, and since she’s also snooping around, the case soon gets complicated. The corpses start piling up!
Good: The author has worked in the mining industry in South Dakota and does a good job of conveying the contrast between the hot leather party of the motorcycle rally and the open countryside around that small town. The story manages to have quite a few twists without getting confusing.
Not so good: There’s some clunky bits of “as you know, Bob” exposition as two FBI officers who are already aware of the nature of outlaw motorcycle gangs brief each other on the subject. Also, there’s quite a bit of fat-shaming. One of the minor characters is made cartoonishly loathsome so that Streeter can look cooler.
Content: There’s oral sex early on, and the solution to the mystery involves backstory that may be triggery for some readers.
Recommended to mystery fans who can stomach the content and have an interest in South Dakota-set stories. Not so recommended to motorcycle enthusiasts, who are in this book mostly to be gawked at.
