Larger Than Life (Smithson Group Book 6)

Great reading for a great price.

I gave this a 5 altho' it could have easily been a 4. Since I hadn't read any of the other books before this one I wasn't familiar with any of the characters, didn't know if they had made any kind of appearances in previous books. So, going with what I read in this one only, I liked the story. Granted, if you looked closely enough it would have been easy to pick at the small stuff. Locations, the characters expertise with some technology and why they would pick a place so remote, called Pit Stop of all things! LOL If you just forget about that and get into the plot and the mystery of what was going on, a lot of that small stuff could be overlooked. Religious cults of the type in this story are all around today. They are mostly whack jobs preying on the vulnerabilities of people that are looking for something and don't know what. Easily led, easily taken in. Generally they are headed up by manipulators looking for money easily taken. Along with the perverse nature of a lot of them, they will continue. While I did think that Neva's story could have been told a little more (again, not knowing if she was in prior stories at all) it would have explained her earlier on. Candy's story was pretty much explained and while heart breaking she was able to rise up from her own ashes and become a heroine in her own right. Now, Mike was a whole lot of story on his own. I thought his character was pretty well defined. There was a serious amount of mystery and suspense. Action and thriller aspects that had a real nail biting experience going on. A couple surprises thrown in here and there and it all came together pretty darn well. I liked the sheriff and his family's story. It came off as real, what a typical small town sheriff would and could wind up going through, given the circumstances. The rest of the characters you'll just have to read and find out about them. One very interesting surprise at the end will tie up a question about one of the characters from the very beginning. Well, maybe two even. The sex, of course, was there. Yeah, it was fairly graphic, perhaps a tat too much or too often, but, put your "skip and skim over" powers in play and stick with the story. It's good. I'd recommend this to anyone that likes mystery and thriller rolled into one.

Characters weren't believable, towns had no character. People with the backgrounds these characters were given would have had high enough IQs to have done things very differently. It seemed that the story revolved around the sexual descriptions which were way too numerous and overdone. A very disappointing read.

So much is happening in this book and there’s so many characters it’s really hard to keep up with the plots. The book includes instalove, violence, runaways, a cult with arranged marriages of young girls to older men and polygamy, an assassin or two, a sleazy lawyer, a stalker, money laundering and pretty much everyone have tragic pasts and secrets.Kind of a stand-alone although the plot involving Smithson group started in previous books and will continue in the next.

For a very small town with only one stoplight, a lot went on with the residents. Lots of players in this book; I especially liked the sheriff & his wife, Jeanne.What I don’t like are overly explicit love scenes, very prevalent in many contemporary romances. It’s gross. Lol.Neva fell in love with Mick before he fell in love with her, and I’m so glad she was honest and upfront about her feelings. Although they didn’t have a lot of scenes together, I found their relationship believable.I do wish at least some of Mick’s co-workers had shown up, FM not withstanding. A great dog!