Injustice For All by Robin Caroll

Title: Injustice For All
Author: Robin Caroll
Publisher: B&H Publishing Group
Genre:  Mystery
Pages: 352
How I Read It: ARC received from the publisher – The views expressed in my review are mine alone and I have received no compensation for these opinions.

Synopsis: A federal judge lies bleeding on his office floor, betrayed by a most unlikely source – people who helped him bring criminals to justice.  Now, why would someone working for the FBI need to disappear after witnessing this crime?

When Remington Wyatt sees her godfather’s murder, she recognizes the killers and knows it’s only a matter of time before they come to silence her.  She must do the only thing possible to stay alive…run.

FBI agent Rafe Baxter is serious about his career, and solving a cold case involving a federal judge’s death puts him in line for the promotion he so desires.  But the case leads him to the small town of Hopewell, Louisiana, where some secrets seem inextricably hidden deep within the bayou.

*Synopsis taken from the back of the book

My Review: After finishing this one, all I can really say is “oh my”, and not in a good way.  I had really high hopes for this book, I wanted a fun, light mystery after reading a truly great but heavy novel, and this was just not what I wanted in any way.  It started out just fine, but lost me along the way.

My first complaint is that the mystery was just not that great.  I don’t like to figure a mystery out on my own, I like the not knowing and wondering, feeling more like I’m one of the characters experiencing the situation at the same time.  Without even trying, not even consciously thinking about who could have done it, I pretty much had everything figured out with the exception of the name of the big bad.  And that’s probably only because that name wasn’t mentioned prior to the reveal.  It left the whole thing flat for me.

Next on my list was the romance aspect of it.  I don’t mind a romance thrown in with my mystery, that’s not a problem at all.  But when it’s not a good mystery, I prefer the romance to be pretty good instead.  I felt like the romance just hit us out of nowhere, inexplicably.  Not in the way that a new romance hits you in real life, in the way that it does in a romance novel that doesn’t do much to show you why the characters are interested in each other.  One character, out of the blue, just thinks they were trying to avoid the idea of the mere presence of another.  This comes on the heels of no indication whatsoever that the character was interested in the other one.  I felt let down by the telling instead of showing when it came to the romance.

After that comes the rather stupid decisions some of the characters made, which felt like mere plot devices instead of how the situation would actually go.  I mean, someone is in danger, the bad guys are nowhere to be found, and you decide to take a detour to do something else?  I can’t buy that cops and FBI agents would do this.  None of the main characters in this book are average citizens, they’re all involved with law enforcement in some way.  For them to neglect some simple details, which seemed obvious to me, was so out of character that it wasn’t believable.

And finally comes the religious aspect.  I’ve read a handful of Christian Fiction books in the past, and enjoyed them despite the fact that I’m not a religious person myself.  But I think there’s a huge difference, both in fiction and in life, between being religious and actually seeming to leave important things in the hands of the lord.  I’m fine with praying, but to me, it felt like there were several times that the fate of friends and loved ones was simply left to the hope that God would take care of it.  This often came on the heels of one of the stupid decisions I already mentioned.  Maybe things are different in the south than where I’m from, but I often found myself rolling my eyes in response to these aspects by the end – people were saved by someone getting there in the nick of time, usually because they finally realized they had done something stupid.  I had a very hard time getting past this aspect of the book, especially with the other areas lacking for me as well.

On the whole, it was a fast read and I’m grateful for that.  I wish I had liked it more, but I really think the only reason I finished at all was out of a sense of obligation.

Read this book if: Based on other reviews I’ve seen, people who really like Christian Fiction seemed to enjoy it more than I did.  Since I didn’t think it was a good mystery or romance, I don’t feel good about recommending it to anyone.

My Rating: 1.5/5 – I thought it reeked!