Book Review: Secrets to the Grave by Tami Hoag

Marissa Fordham is found brutally murdered, her four year old daughter lying barely alive at her side in a pool of blood. Sherriff’s detective Tony Mendez calls in the help of Anne Leone, teacher turned child advocate, to help with the child, the only witness to her mother’s tragic end. After some digging, it turns out Marissa had been hiding some dark secrets – one of which being that she was living under an assumed name.


SECRETS TO THE GRAVE is the second book in a mini-series that started with DEEPER THAN THE DEAD. While it can be read as a standalone, if you plan to read the first book, you should read it first as basically that whole book is spoiled here. I did not read that first book due to lack of time – but I’m sure if I read it in 6 months, I won’t remember too much of what happened in this fairly standard crime thriller.

What attracted me most about the novel was the assumed identity angle. I always find it fascinating to read about people who have changed their identities and why. Marissa’s story is quite twisted too, and the killer’s motive pretty original (if crazy unbelievable). I am usually not that good at fingering the killer, but this time, I caught on to the clues pretty easily and early on.

I did laugh quite a bit at the repeated mentions by the characters that they were living in 1986 and did not have the proper equipment, such as widespread DNA testing and computer databases, to really do their job as efficiently as they might be able to do a few years down the road.

SECRETS TO THE GRAVE comes out on December 28th. Find out more about it at the author’s website.

This has been a part of a TLC tour.  Check out the tour post for more stops!