THE TORI WINTERS
MYSTERY SERIES
By Anita Dickason
Gritty Cozy Mystery / Women Sleuths / Series
Publisher: Mystic Circle Books
I read the first two books in this amazing series right when they published (2022 & 2023, respectively). At the time, I was neck high in running my business and promoting these and other books by Texas-connected authors, and so I failed to put my reviews on my blog. THE HORROR! I've remedied that by sharing my reviews of DEADLY KEEPSAKES and MURDER'S LEGACY below.
A little birdie told me that this fabulous author is some 50,000 words into writing the manuscript for the next installment (expected pub-date June 2025), and I'm just pleased as punch! So I'm encouraging y'all to read these so you can just roll into the third book.
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ABOUT THE BOOK
The past becomes a deadly future.
When Tori Winters becomes the star witness in a murder trial, someone tries to kill her. Terrified, she’s not giving the killer a second chance. With all her worldly possessions packed in her car, Tori is on the run. A mysterious phone call about an inheritance leads her to Granbury. After all, who would look for her in a small, quaint Texas town?
Instead, Tori’s life is about to spin into an existence where nothing is as it seems. The historic house she inherits is steeped in secrets from the past. Secrets that may prove deadly. She’s a stranger in a strange town. Who can she trust? There is the disinherited step-grandson and the lawyer and his son. What are they hiding?
Tori’s inheritance may not be a blessing when a killer strikes again. It could be her death warrant.
HALL WAYS REVIEW: DEADLY KEEPSAKES: The first thing I do when I start a print copy of a book is to take a piece of notebook paper, fold it into fourths, and slip it in the cover so I can take notes as I read -- in order to produce a meticulously written, fact-filled book review. When I finished DEADLY KEEPSAKES, my paper was blank.
Why? Because I was immediately so engrossed in the story that I never even thought to pause and make commentary on the outstanding story development, richly-written world building, or fully fleshed-out characters that gave me gut-reactions from the get-go. This is probably the highest compliment I can give an author, but the downside is that my memory stinkles, so I can't come up with too many specifics to support how dazzled I was by this series starter by Anita Dickason.
I adore the Granbury, Texas setting, and since it's a town I'm familiar with, it made the story even more realistic. Clearly, Dickason knows the town, the vibe, and the variety of people you'll find there (the range is from the snoot-snootiest to the down-to-earth peeps that you want at your kitchen table sharing a few cuppas.
And speaking of cuppas -- DANG! Main character Tori and her crew know how to drink the java! I need to know what kind of coffeemaker she owns to be able to do the brew at a level that surely rivals any Starbucks. Their coffee consumption makes me look like a novice. The coffee angle was just one of many aspects I enjoyed.
I'm going to call this book a gritty cozy mystery. Given the author's expertise and experience in law enforcement, she gives readers a little more description in violent scenes than you'd get in a traditional cozy, but it's never gratuitous or gross. There's a hint of developing romance, but it always takes a back seat to the unfolding mystery and high action. And DANG is about as strong a curse word as you'll find in the pages.
DEADLY KEEPSAKES is the first of Anita's (many) books I've read, and I'm smitten with it! Highly recommend.
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ABOUT THE BOOK
Secrets that defy time!
An inconceivable disaster brings Tori Winters’s plans for the historic house she inherited to a traumatic standstill. A section of the escape tunnel built by her great-grandfather, a notorious Dallas gangster, has collapsed. Within the rubble, there is a gruesome discovery. A skeleton with a bullet hole in the skull.
The shocking cave-in triggers an ominous scheme to condemn her property as accusations arise that the tunnel is dangerous.
Embattled, Tori soon discovers that more than the destruction of the house is on the line. It seems she can’t escape the past. It keeps clawing its way into her life with deadly consequences.
Who hides in the shadows with a motive for murder?
And … is Tori the target?
HALL WAYS REVIEW: MURDER'S LEGACY: I so enjoyed diving back into the Tori Winters world, and there are SO many directions this series could still go given the ominous final line of the novel! I am just happy that it's wide open for the next book -- because there MUST BE a next book.
Set in the very-real Granbury, Texas, MURDER'S LEGACY will tug on you to make a road trip there. Author Anita Dickason drops mentions of several very-real local businesses, too, even including websites to them in the extra notes at the end of the book. The Granbury Visitor's Bureau should send her a thank you card (and keep copies of this series on hand). Now, if they'd build a real Red Door Inn! I'm game.
This second volume in the series is a little different from the first with a majority of the action happening in & around Tori's mansion. The fabulously fleshed-out core characters return, and the group wonderfully expands with the addition of a few more. These are definitely people I'd want to share a cuppa with (Team COFFEE, not sweet tea).
Each day of the story's progression starts and finishes in much the same manner, but readers should pay attention to what may seem mundane. Dickason includes small details that lead to ah-ha moments later for a most satisfying resolution to almost all the loose ends (remember that ominous last line I mentioned?).
Main character Tori is really coming into her element as a capable businesswoman who won't be pushed around, but also as an amateur sleuth, which given history of her home, is sure to keep coming in handy. I've got a new category for Anita Dickason's series: Mystorical Fiction. (But for lovers of cozy mysteries, this one's getting cozier with more than one couple sending off sparks.) Much to look forward to! Can't wait.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Award-winning Author Anita Dickason is a twenty-two-year veteran of the Dallas Police Department. She served as a patrol officer, undercover narcotics detective, advanced accident investigator, tactical officer, and first female sniper on the Dallas SWAT team.
Anita writes about what she knows, cops and crime. Her police background provides an unending source of inspiration for her plots and characters. Many incidents and characters portrayed in her books are based on personal experience. For her, the characters are the fun part of writing as she never knows where they will take her. There is always something out of the ordinary in her stories.
In Anita’s debut novel, Sentinels of the Night, she created an elite FBI Unit, the Trackers. Since then, she has added three more Tracker crime thrillers, Going Gone!, A u 7 9, and Operation Navajo, which are not a series and can be read in any order, and Deadly Business, a crime thriller.
As a Texas author, many of Anita’s books are based in Texas, or there is a link to Texas. When she stepped outside of the Tracker novels and wrote Not Dead and the Tori Winters Mysteries series, she set them in the small Texas communities of Meridian and Granbury, respectively.
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