Hubris (A Charity Deacon Investigation) [Kindle Edition]

I enjoyed the humor... and the decent writing.
The plot was done well enough to keep me guessing, and I will definitely look at other books by this author.

I didn't realise until I finished this book that it is the first in a new series, I felt as if I had just zapped into the middle of a long-running soap opera. I am not criticising, I liked that. There were no lengthy introductions or descriptions of the people or the places, just straight in at the deep end. There is a murder in the third paragraph and from then on the excitement never lets up.

Val, the teenage prostitute whose sister has disappeared (been disappeared!) is a character I shall never forget. And as for Charity Deacon, the PI who also waits table and is not afraid to take on one of the nastiest sets of woman-trafficking thugs I have ever come across in a book or in a film (or, thank God, in real life), I loved her and I am just waiting to read the second in the series, which is apparently set in France, instead of the author's and Charity's home-town of Vancouver.

I love mysteries, thrillers, suspense; give me anything with a dead body and I'm happy. In Hubris we get a body within the very first chapter.

Charity Deacon is a private investigator slash freelance journalist, who, after witnessing a mid-day murder disguised as a car crash and later accepting a missing persons case, finds herself plunged into the dangerous underworld of Vancouver. Where prostitution, human trafficking, and the rule of Chinese gangsters is just a normal day.

Told from Charity's point of view Hubris is a fast paced page turner, we meet Charity, her best friend Lu, her friend-with-benefits Jake, and her client Val very quickly. Quick actually does a good job of describing Hubris, but that could just be because I had a hard time putting it down.

After agreeing to take Val's case, Charity's life grows a lot more dangerous, and the reader moves a bit closer to the edge of their seat.

I really enjoyed the set up and development of the characters in Hubris and of course, the story itself. Ms. Wilson uses an informal language and tone in both the narration and dialog which results in a plot and characters that are completely believable. Charity isn't a badass or a magic user, on the contrary, she's kind of clumsy and she talks to herself, frequently. In other words, completely normal. It is this normalcy of the characters, and the situations they find themselves that really makes this book such a page turner. Don't get me wrong, I love a good paranormal story, the unexplainable, in-human monster stalking the streets is deliciously terrifying, but the human monsters are always far more scary.

Nearly impossible to put down, I would recommend Hubris to anyone who enjoys the detective novels or the suspense genre. I for one, am glad I had the opportunity to read it, and I'm definitely looking forward to the next (mis)adventure Charity gets herself into.