The Couple on Cedar Close: An absolutely gripping psychological thriller (Detective Dan Riley Book 2) Kindle Edition

I love the Dan Riley series! Love Dan Riley ! I’m on book three now and already hoping ms. Weatherly will continue the series. The first two books I loved they had it all. Extremely hard to put down. I read the first in one day and the second in two. Sadly , I had chores to do!

Great plot. Lots of dips and turns. You do find out in the middle of it what is really going on but you keep reading to find out if the killer is going to get away with it.

This is a great read and hard to put down. I enjoyed reading it, but had the killer pegged from the beginning. The mental and domestic abuse is difficult to read, but otherwise the book is great

I think I know who the killer was within five seconds of them being introduced. But still had fun reading and don't regret it.

First, let me state that I think most readers like me who habitually read thrillers will figure this one out pretty quickly. I knew "whodunit" a quarter of the way into the book. Frankly, I thought it was obvious.That said, I still enjoyed the read both to find out if I was correct as well as to see what other twists the author would throw into the mix. There are quite a few.I must say that I LOVE our detective hero, Dan Riley. Dan is a great guy, and that intuition of his rivals that of us gals. Well done, Dan.My pet peeves always are profanity and graphic sex and violence. While sex was limited and violence no more graphic than fit the narrative, the book does contain quite a bit of cursing and profanity. Too much for my liking but some readers don't have a problem with that. I do. Perhaps other than a "word" here or there for emphasis or as a reflection of a character's personality, I have no use for vile language, either written or spoken. I was always taught that intelligent people should be able to express themselves adequately without gutter talk.Another small annoyance in this book, and so many others as well, is the misuse of "you and I" and "you and me." This is SO common but I expect an author to know the correct usage of each; however, most certainly editors and proofreaders should know the difference!For anyone struggling with this, here's an easy way to know which is correct. "You and I will go." Drop "you and" then "I will go" is correct. "They gave the award to you and me." Do the same: they gave the award to me. Simply say the sentence using either "you" or "I" alone and you'll never get it wrong. Sorry for the grammar lesson but we're in dire need of it!For the most part, The Couple on Cedar Close was a pretty good read. So, yes, I do recommend it - despite all my hang ups about grammar (and punctuation)!

Laurie & Robert have a toxic marriage. Laurie is the victim of years of psychological abuse. One afternoon, she overhears Robert talking lovingly on the phone. He wants a divorce, so he can marry his mistress with whom he fathered a child. (Their daughter is 7 months old.) That day, Laurie has a major meltdown & publicly outs his affair at a neighborhood barbecue. They've been living apart, ever since.One day, she's expecting him to come over but he doesn't show. While she's waiting for him, she drinks an entire bottle of vodka, some wine & prosecco and she blacks out. When she comes to, she's lying on the bed & she's covered in blood. She has no recollection of going upstairs. She finds her estranged husband dead in the guest bathroom of their home with his throat savagely cut, his head almost decapitated and he's been stabbed 18 times in the chest & stomach. He was slaughtered. She calls the police & when they arrive, she's intoxicated & incoherent. It appears as if a spurned wife took revenge on a cheating husband. It has all the hallmarks of a crime of passion. But, the lead detective intuits there's more to it than meets the eye.Her best friend Monica had introduced Robert to Laurie. Laurie & Monica have known each other since they were teens. Monica tells the detective about an auto accident that Laurie had about a year ago. She was 8 months pregnant with twins, when she discovered Robert's infidelity. She was in a terrible state, crying, hysterical, hormonal, heavily pregnant, devastated & in total despair. She had been driving down to where he was working to confront him, when she lost control of her vehicle & careened off the road. It took them nearly 6 hours to pull her out of the wreck. She was barely alive, when they finally got her free. She suffered a collapsed lung, broken ribs, a shattered collarbone & internal bleeding. They weren't able to save the twins; a girl & a boy. She completely unraveled. She had a mental breakdown & still suffers from a deep, dark, debilitating depression. She was prescribed antidepressants, sedatives, a cocktail of prescription drugs AND she self-medicates with alcohol.Someone murdered Robert. Perhaps, that someone is her. But, she can't remember. And, just because she had a motive & found the body doesn't mean that she's the killer.Robert was a womanizer; a sexual predator. So, they can't rule out a jealous husband or boyfriend, or even a lover. Early on in the investigation, it's perfectly clear that Laurie is being framed. Someone has set her up. But, who & why remain a mystery.Fragments of her memory return. She remembers being carried up the stairs & the person who was carrying her was wearing perfume. Someone else was in the house on the day Robert was murdered. She is sure of it. But, no one will believe her. Her DNA is all over the murder weapon, she had motive & opportunity, a history of depression & mental illness, there was no sign of a break-in, no evidence of 3rd party...It all comes out in court. Monica & Robert are brother & sister. Their incestuous relationship began when Monica was only 13. Their chosen method of birth control is abortion. Monica has had 6 or 7. It's a sordid, deviant story. ICKY!!!

What an enjoyavle novel! From beginning to end, I couldn’t put it down. The plot was twisted & entertaining. The characters were realistic——the good ones were human & empathetic. The bad ones were evil, the kind of characters a reader loves to hate.Although the novel was a bit slow to build up in the beginning, once the author found her stride, the plot picked up its momentum & everything began to flow.I especially liked the ending. I love when rotten, miserable characters get the life they deserve. Although I quickly deduced who killed Robert, & who a certain character actually was, I still found this novel to be suspensful.I’ve got Anna-Lou Weatherley’s next novel & will be reading it in a few minutes.The author did a great job writing this novel.If you’re a reader of stories of murder & suspense, withwell thought out characters, you’ll enjoy this novel.

Muito bom!

I really enjoyed this book but I did find it a bit frustrating at times. It's pretty obvious quite early on who the murderer is and it doesn't take a genius to work out who Bertie and Kiki are in the flashbacks. But then I got frustrated waiting for the police to work it out when all the clues were there. They continued to have the wife down as the prime suspect despite forensics and CCTV confirming she couldn't have been in the right place at the right time, and when she told them she'd been knocked out on Valium the previous night so couldn't possibly have been at the murder scene they would surely have done a blood test to confirm this. There were numerous other things that just didn't add up but I don't want to include these as they may spoil it for others. Another reviewer mentioned that the dates and ages didn't match either, which I also found a bit annoying. But otherwise, I really enjoyed the story, by the latter half of the book I couldn't put it down, and I think it would make an excellent 3 or 4 part drama for TV.

I downloaded this book as it was a recommended read and just the sort of book I enjoy. Soon after beginning I realised I was reading the second book in a detective series. So eager was I to begin reading, I hadn't realised sooner! By this time though I was fully committed and wanted to carry on.The book begins with a barbecue party thrown by the residents of Cedar Close. For Laurie Mills it is the first time she is meeting her neighbours, her husband, Robert is already a firm favourite but Laurie has been locked away since they moved in following an horrific accident she was involved in.The day soon turns into disaster for Laurie as she discovers her husband has been having an affair and is planning to leave her. Shortly after, Robert is discovered dead by Laurie in their home, she is covered in blood yet has no recollection of ever seeing Robert that day, let alone any memory of killing him in such a brutal way.Given an alibi by her friend and neighbour, Monica, she wrestles with the idea she must have committed this heinous crime and blacked the whole event out. As the evidence stacks against her, how can Laurie prove her innocence or accept responsibility?This is an extremely dark and twisted book. After the first few chapters I wasn't convinced I was enjoying it. On a few occasions the author had gone off on some pointless tangents which caused me to roll my eyes somewhat. However, I carried on and tried to ignore those and I'm glad I did. I really enjoyed this book. Yes, I had figured out who the culprit was, but I hadn't guessed the motives and how it would all pan out towards the end so I wasn't remotely bored or racing to the conclusion as is so often the case when you've cracked it yourself early on.I can understand some reviewers points of view when they say certain elements are cringy, as stated earlier in my own review but definitely don't think this warrants some of the one and two star reviews I read once I'd finished the book. Maybe if I'd read the first book I wouldn't have found those elements quite so worthy of an eye roll. So that is exactly what I'm going to do now, go back and read the first book before we hopefully encounter Detective Reilly in a third book.

I enjoyed the characters and the well-rounded way they were written, but the plot was far to easy to spot and I found myself skipping pages once I was around 35% in. It was just a little too obvious. Unsure whether I would read another by this author for fear of the same but I might leave it a while and try again.

This is the 2nd book in the Dan Riley series & I absolutely loved it. I literally couldn't put it down & read it in a day. Very good, gripping, exciting story. Going to read book 3 now. Glad I found this author which I did as book 1 in the series, Black Heart was free on Amazon. Good ploy as am hooked on author & Dan Riley now!!