"Retirement" is apparently detective-speak for "Sure, I'll get involved."
Practically everything a girl could ask for in a crime thriller: evil guys kidnapping young women to sell them, corruption in the police department, murder, and four retired detectives who discover that apparently retirement is more of a suggestion than an actual rule.
What’s not to love?
The four retired detectives were easily my favorite part of Peace River Village. Art, Jarvis, Lois, and Diego completely won me over. Art and Jarvis are regular old guys who seem perfectly content to enjoy retirement, desperately trying to do absolutely nothing. Lois and Diego, on the other hand, just can’t help themselves. There are crimes happening, people need help, and apparently you can take the detective out of the police department, but you can’t take the police detective out of the retiree.
This isn’t really a whodunit. Because of the way Christopher Amato tells the story, I knew who the bad guys were, and I knew who the dirty cop was. But that didn’t bother me at all. The fun and suspense came from watching the pieces come together.
There is some seriously ugly stuff going on beneath the surface of Peace River Village. Young women are being kidnapped and sold, people are being murdered, and police corruption makes it difficult to know exactly who can be trusted. Fortunately, four people with decades of investigative experience have a hard time ignoring trouble when it lands practically in their laps. Even when two of them would really rather be doing nothing.
And I have to admit, I particularly enjoyed Art and Jarvis dispensing just a teeny bit of home-style justice before the decidedly un-retired police department arrived. Was it strictly by the book?
Well...
They’re retired. They don't have a book anymore.
Peace River Village was a solid four-star read for me. It had plenty of crime and corruption, genuinely nasty villains, likable characters I enjoyed spending time with, and enough action to keep me turning pages. But the four retired detectives are what really made this one work for me.
Apparently retirement just means you get to solve crimes without having to fill out the paperwork.
