Book ~ "Keep Her Safe" (2018) K.A. Tucker

From Goodreads ~ Noah Marshall has known a privileged and comfortable life thanks to his mother, the highly decorated chief of the Austin Police Department. But all that changes the night she reveals a skeleton that's been rattling in her closet for years and succumbs to the guilt of destroying an innocent family's life. Reeling with grief, Noah is forced to carry the burden of this shocking secret.

Gracie Richards wasn't born in a trailer park but after fourteen years of learning how to survive in The Hollow, it's all she knows anymore. At least here people don't care that her dad was a corrupt Austin cop, murdered in a drug deal gone wrong. Here, she and her mother are just another family struggling to survive ... until a man who clearly doesn't belong shows up on her doorstep.

Despite their differences, Noah and Gracie are searching for answers to the same questions, and together, they set out to uncover the truth about the Austin Police Department's dark and messy past. But the scandal that emerges is bigger than they bargained for, and goes far higher up than they ever imagined.

Noah is in his early twenties and living with his divorced mother, Jackie, who is the Chief of Police in Austin.  She has been drinking a lot lately and rambles some crazy story to him one night about how her ex-partner, Abe, was actually innocent and she was a party to bringing him down.  Abe had been a respected police officer but fourteen years ago his image was tarnished forever when he was implicated and killed during a drug deal gone bad.  That night Jackie kills herself and leaves Noah with instructions to make things right and deliver something to Abe's widow, Dina, and his daughter, Gracie.

Noah follows his mother's last wish and finds Dina and Gracie.  Life hasn't been kind to them ... they have been living in poverty in a shabby trailer park in Arizona.  Noah and Gracie band together and head back to Austin to find out the truth about Abe and possibly clear his name.

I've read a few books by this author.  I liked this story and the writing style.  It's written in first person perspective from Noah's, Grace's, Jackie's and Abe's point of view (the chapters are labeled so you know whose voice it is).  The story jumps back and forth in time from today to the spring of 2003 (also labelled in the chapter heading).  As a head's up, there is swearing and adult activity.

I liked the characters.  I thought Noah was a nice fella.  Though he is grieving and is shocked by the death of his mother, he still feels honour-bound to fulfill her last wish.  Plus he has wonderful memories of Abe.  I found Gracie a bit annoying at times, though, because she was so impulsive and wouldn't listen.  But she was young (about 20ish) and didn't have the maturity at times, I guess.