Book ~ "Tin God" (2013) Stacy Green

From Goodreads ~ Getting pregnant as a teenager and being coerced into giving her baby up for adoption left a festering scar on Jaymee Ballard’s life. Trapped by poverty and without many allies, Jaymee nearly gives up hope of getting her daughter back after her best friend is murdered. Now, four years later, a wealthy woman with legal connections hires her as a housekeeper and Jaymee gathers the courage to seek her help. But Jaymee’s last chance ends up in a puddle of blood in one of the historic antebellum mansions in Roselea, Mississippi.

I just murdered your wife … again.

An unsigned letter consisting of six horrifying words turns Nick Samuels' stagnant life upside down. Stuck in emotional purgatory since his wife’s unsolved murder four years ago, Nick is about to self-destruct. The arrival of the letter claiming credit for his wife’s murder and boasting of a new kill sends Nick to Roselea, where he and Jaymee’s worlds collide.

Jaymee and Nick realize exposing the truth about her daughter’s adoption is the only way to solve the murders. Up against years of deception, they rush to identify the killer before the evidence - and Jaymee’s daughter - are lost.

But the truth doesn’t always set the guilt-ridden free. Sometimes, it destroys them.

Jaymee lives in a rundown trailer park in Roselea.  She works in a diner full-time and cleans Rebecca's historic mansion once a week.  She's saving all her money to hire a lawyer so she can find the daughter she was forced to put up for adoption seven years ago when she was a teenager.  Paul, her abusive father, feels she is shaming their family name and beats his wife if Jaymee makes contact.

Nick is a reporter in Jackson whose wife, Lana, was murdered four years ago and the killer was never found.  To avoid his grief, he works all the time.

When Rebecca is found murdered similar to Lana (who was Jaymee's best friend), Nick receives a letter that says his wife has been murdered again.  He rushes to her hometown in hopes of finding out what happened.

Cage is a cop and Lana's brother.  He is Jaymee's good friend but he has deeper feelings for her than she has for him.  Jaymee and Nick are drawn together which doesn't make Cage very happy.

The story follows Jaymee, Nick and Cage as they seek to solve the murders which seem to be tied together.

The term "tin god" refers to Holden Wilcher, who is a TV evangelist from Roselea now living in Jackson.  

"Idol worshippers in Biblical times often prayed to idols made of metal.  Christians (worshippers of the one true God) believed these to be false gods.  A tin god is a false god, an idol who's worshipped by those too ignorant to understand his treachery.

Holden is best friends with Jaymee's father and could be into something shifty.

I liked the writing style.  I found it started out a bit slow but picked up about a quarter of the way in.  The characters were well-developed. I found Paul a bit extreme, though.  He was always raging about something and everyone put up with it.  If he was that big of an A-hole and a bully, why didn't anyone ever attack him (wearing a mask perhaps?) and give him a taste of what he dished out?!

This book had lots of twists and turns and I didn't know who the murderer(s) was/were until it was revealed towards the end.  I wasn't expecting it but I bought it.  The ending was wrapped up very quickly.
 
I received a copy of this ebook from the author at no charge in exchange for my honest review.