Author: Lea O’Harra

Publisher:  Sharpe Books-UK

ISBN:  979-8361831937 

“I leaned forward for a better look when the paper and ribbon lay on the grass. It was a black cardboard shoe box with the name Calhoun’s picked out in gilt lettering on the lid. Sally opened the lid, looked inside, and just froze. Time stood still. Her face turned a ghostly white. She shoved the lid back on and pushed the box toward me.” 

Truly great novels always pull you in from the beginning. Such is the case with Lea O'Harra's, Dead Reckoning. I knew from the first page of this book that I was in for a wild ride, and I was right. 

In the vein of all great thrillers, Dead Reckoning, focuses a story on a perfectly normal-seeming woman with an unexpectedly dark past, and the way those buried secrets come back to haunt her in unexpected ways. The protagonist of this book is Gillian Kataoka, a grown woman who was once a young girl growing up in the small town of Byron, Indiana. 

In 2010, Gillian lives in Japan with her husband, Toshi. Although their marriage has been struggling since the revelation that they are not able to have children, Toshi urges Gillian to bring him along when she returns to Byron to attend her mother's funeral. However, the dark secrets about his wife that Toshi uncovers while there strain the marriage even further. 

See, Gillian and her best friend, Sally made a gruesome discovery as children. They found the body of a baby hidden in their local cemetery, and, instead of reporting it to the police, they decided to bury it again outside of Gillian's house. 

Years later, after an insane series of events that are told through flashbacks, Gillian must come to terms with the fact that she may have been wrong about what happened to the baby, and that her incorrect assumption may have led a man to spend 20 years in jail. 

Dead Reckoning was almost impossible to put down and I found myself reading well into the wee hours of the morning.  The plot was so inventive and the writing was spot on. O’Harra certainly knows how to hold a reader’s attention.  I highly recommend this breath taking novel!

About Lea O’Harra

Lea O’Harra has published three crime fiction novels set in rural modern-day Japan: Imperfect Strangers (2015); Progeny (2016); and Lady First (2017). These comprise the so-called ‘Inspector Inoue Murder Mystery’ series originally published by Endeavour Press (UK). She has also had a story included in Best Asian Crime Fiction published by Kitaab Press (Singapore) in 2020.
In the spring of 2022 Sharpe Books reissued the Inoue mystery series and, in September 2022, published Lea O’Harra’s fourth novel, Dead Reckoning, a stand-alone set in her tiny hometown in the American Midwest. You can learn about Lea and all her books on her website.

Follow Here To Read Bee's Interview With Lee O'Harra