Secret Rituals (Morgan Knight Mysteries #1)
Author: Jo Beekman
3.5 out of 5 stars
When human remains are found in a way that resembles an occult ritual, security company owner and occult expert Morgan Knight is called in. Morgan is sill struggling with the death of her husband, a sheriff’s deputy, less than a year ago, but she’s ready to help the police as a consultant again. And they desperately need her as headless bodies and heads that don’t match the bodies are still being found. She connects the rituals to a secretive and dark religion, but the police are still struggling to find evidence and identities for most of the bodies. Will they figure it out in time and catch the killer? At the same time, Morgan helps a grieving grandmother figure out what ritual her grandson may have been attempting before his death.
Overall, the story was well written and easily drew me in. I really liked the characters. They were well written and were their own distinct people. Morgan is good friends with her employees. She’s also well liked by the police officers she interacts with. Morgan is still grieving for her husband, but in this book we see her starting to move on. She has a cookout with her friends, which used to be a normal occurrence, but this is the first one since his death.
There were a couple of negatives. There were some editing mistakes including spelling mistakes, like in instead of it. Another things is that sometimes the obvious answer wasn’t considered. The main one for this is one of the victims that is identified disappeared when he went to hang out with some new friends. Morgan’s immediate thought is to wonder is they’re also dead. My first thought was, “I wonder if they were in on it?” The fact that they could have been involved was never brought up in the book. The couple of times there brought up later, it’s still with the assumption that they’re probably victims too. The fact that this other possibility was never brought up honestly annoyed me.
Unfortunately, it was easy for me to figure out who was involved in the killing. It’s never mentioned that the police have any suspects, and there was one person who kept being brought up outside of the case. So I kept wondering if he did have some connection to the case, especially as I got closer to the end of the book.
Due to the negatives, I’m rating this book 3.5 out of 5 stars. However, I did enjoy the book overall and really liked the characters, so I would read more of the series. If you like mysteries that touch on the occult and have some suspense, then you’ll enjoy this book.
Current price through Amazon Kindle: $0
Link to buy: https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Rituals-Morgan-Knight-Mysteries-ebook/dp/B0BW8YXYPT
(I do not benefit from the use of this link.)