Impervious - Sean McPherson 3 by Laurie Buchanan

Book Blurb

The bride, the groom, the toast, the explosion. What should be a joyous occasion turns lethal.

In the village of Fairhaven—nestled between Washington State’s Bellingham Bay and the Cascade Mountains, home to writers’ retreat Pines & Quill—friends and family have gathered for the union of Sean McPherson and Emma Benton. Sean has been working with the FBI and local police to help solve crimes, particularly murders bearing the mark of crime boss Georgio “The Bull” Gambino. Emma, who has just learned to walk again, has begun to feel at home and hopes to one day raise a family.

But just as the festivities begin and corks fly, an explosion shatters everything, killing one and injuring others. From Bellingham to San Francisco and New Orleans, the chase is on to discover who’s dead set on ensuring the newlyweds don’t live happily ever after.

The writers currently in residence at Pines & Quill include a vineyard owner, a Bryn Mawr College professor, a special education teacher accompanied by her seeing-eye dog, and an intuitive who can’t or won’t identify the killer. Gambino has a knack for finding people in even the most inaccessible places to do his bidding. Could one of the writers be on his payroll?

About the Author - Laurie Buchanan

Laurie Buchanan writes the Sean McPherson novels—fast-paced thrillers set in the Pacific Northwest that feature a trifecta of malice and the pursuit and cost of justice.

A cross between Dr. Dolittle, Nanny McPhee, and a type-A Buddhist, Buchanan is an active listener, observer of details, payer of attention, reader and writer of books, kindness enthusiast, and red licorice aficionado.

Impervious - Sean McPherson 3

I thank the team of NetGalley, the author and the publishers for providing me with this ARC.

All views expressed in this review are my own and based on my reading of this book. Some of the initial comments were made as I progressed in this book and I have not tried editing them as it expresses my contiguous thoughts as I proceeded with the story.

This is my first book with this author. The title of the novel and the genre attracted me to this book.

The book is a part of a series which makes this a contiguous story. This means that there have been two prior stories that have come out and which people have read and probably appreciated. It also means for me that Laurie has a clear idea where she wants her stories to move and she is working hard on developing the Mcpherson universe and plotting more stories for the eco-system.

The locales in Washington district, Fairhaven is well described and provides the reader clear images of the locality and its views. Pines & Quill overlooking Bellingham Bay, the location of much of the action in this book is described lovingly and seems a place that I would love to visit, although it is a writers retreat. The book provides some great descriptions of the scenic beauty of the area. The meal items and drinks concocted by Laurie through the character of Niall at the Pines & Quill kitchen are rare treats and made me raid my fridge multiple times during the course of reading this book. The food made a welcome relief against the action and sometimes seemed almost a parallel story in itself.

The love story at the heart of this book between the titular character and Emma is also something to cherish, the love story between Sean's parents is undercut, the one between Niall and Sean's sister Libby is beautiful. The easy camaraderie between the principal characters all present a feeling of comfort and family that belies the story's underlying viciousness.

The story is a vengeance thriller and the story starts with the villain plotting the downfall of the protagonist & family. The story follows up to Sean & Emma's marriage program which gets marred by a car explosion leading to the death of a NPC, the valet. Gambino the prime mover behind this vengeful drama keeps orchestrating situations to kill the couple. He is a back room planner who gets his minions to do the dirty work and we have his protégé Toni Bianco the prima donna of this piece, who displays psychopathic behavior and thrills in the kills liking to be at the thick of things. She is also with the Bellingham police one of many other Gambino moles in the department albeit a senior one aggressively climbing his organizational ladder.

A lower back tattoo is the only common thread between the moles and killers who owe their fealty to Gambino. The action spills over till San Francisco and New Orleans and with more than adequate bloodbath the book reaches a satisfactory conclusion and then there is a "Sorry Mario, the princess is in another castle", ending for the next book in the series. Gambino is still out there waiting to renew his vengeance.

Laurie can be appreciated for the way she has laid out the story and kept ticking all the relevant boxes, the story for the majority of the book flows along with not much roadblocks and/or hiccups.

I have tried to put some of what put me off this book and resulted in my rating here below and taking nothing away from the authors efforts, these are my list of what did not meet my expectations in this novel.

This book is listed as "can be read as a standalone novel" but in the initial pages and right through the book, there are enough acknowledgements to the previous adventure(s) to put off a new reader, especially in the first quarter of the book. The back stories and references seem to pop up all over the place and in several instances incidents that happen in this book are repeated later on verbatim and which for a mystery thriller is a low point for the reader.

This almost put me off reading this book when I started over a week back but I braved the pages and completed the book in around a week of casual reading.

The book starts off with a comparison of the wrecker in chief here Gambino as an criminal mastermind of the Machiavellian kind like Professor Moriarty. This was a massive statement upfront and raised my expectations for this book to stratospheric levels, not a great ploy when compared to what ultimately comes out in the following 300+ pages. The planning if anything by Gambino "The Bull" is not consistent as we only see him stating "get it done" as final order and the novel only showcases him as a ruthless Mafioso whose people are terminated at his whim and fancy. Most of the assassination attempts are lackluster at best because they never really work. A car bomb for a marriage hoping that the owner will be the only person handling it when there is family as well as valet parking available. A policeperson setting up the bomb, it seemed Gambino only employs police persons and not others. The entire PD seems to be on the take. And in a marriage function you cannot have someone local, that too a policeman who could be identified later on, so planning is a bust. This test case shows lack of proper planning and more consistent with the forced brute force approach.

Gambino is no Moriarty but he is ruthless. He orders death of his minions if they fail, if they get caught and his people have a suitable amount of dread for their boss.

The number of people in the PD who are on the take seems quite high but that's fine if one considers that Gambino operates in a vast market but how is the Bellingham PD employing so many psycho's and sociopaths who are willing to kill for their mob boss as a part of their corruption, seems like overkill. I don't know how they hire people in the PD there in Washington state but there must be some process to filter out people and while people may be corrupt but only to the extent of sharing/leaking information, killing not so much, that requires a very different kind of person.

The book is also quite predictable in its story and does not offer anything fresh as a mystery. It is a standard vengeance drama in action.

The killings and their fallouts are handled beautifully and that along with the family related parts were for me what has made this book rise above the mundane and reach the readable category. I cannot find fault in the pace of the story and the way the characters endear themselves to the memory. A stronger handling of the planning of the murders/attempts and toning down on the initial comparison with Doyle's Moriarty, thereby lowering expectations of the reader would have made this a much more superb experience.

I commend the team on this book and recommend it for readers who want a racy story where there is not much of detection or mystery. I would also ask readers to catch up with the previous titles so as to make reading this book a better experience. There is enough blood in the story for most people to enjoy.

3.5 stars for the book. 

Book releases on 4th April 2023.

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