Review: Fresh Doubt - Episode One: An Ingrid Skyberg FBI Thriller

Fresh Doubt - Episode One: An Ingrid Skyberg FBI Thriller by Eva Hudson

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



This was a bookbub freebie, I feel a little bad giving only 3 stars for a book I did not pay for.
It may still be free and if not, sometimes the same books get the Promo Bookbub/Freebie treatment again.

Bookbub for recommendations
Not very solid first book in a series, but I will surely read the second to see how the heroine and the series develops.
A female FBI-Agent posted in the US-Embassy in London.
Interesting and I like the US-UK comparisons.
Romance is only hinted at, a fiancé in the US with a decision still open at the end of the book, wether to break-up and stay in the UK, with a possible love-interest in a cop, also not solved or even clear at the end of the book. That was ok with me, I do not like too much romance, but leaving all this unsolved for the next book to hopefully go one way or the other? Feels wrong.

There are two cases, one lesser handled totally unprofessional and not solved, the other one solved with a totally unsatisfying action from Ingrid.
Thrown in to the mix are an interesting female cop and a female reporter with whom she works a solution I really do not like, while the female cop only suspects what happened, she does nothing to put it right. While this is also the case with other cops in other books and sometimes even in RL, it is nothing I can accept, or understand. And for once I would like to read more books with agents playing it by the book (Twin Peaks Dale Cooper comes to mind).

Also the baddie in this book was obvious to me after a third of the book or earlier, in the beginning there are a few scenes to point in a different direction, but it just got too much.
This could have been a solid 4 star book with a solution by the FBI-playbook or both cases connected through a twist, or more twists, both cases solved or whatever.

This is comparable to the Maeve Kerrigan-Books by Jane Casey, and there it is now obvious to me, where this book fails for me:
while the amount of romance (and sex) is a little higher in the Casey-Books, Maeve plays by the rules, and also has partner some (most) of the time.
While I like Ingrid acting alone, I do not think the FBI (or every other agency) would let an agent act alone most of the time.
Given the high risks she takes, and her being just lucky to escape a few accidents, she is more like a female Rambo.

As it is, without reading the next book I cannot safely recommend this. Probably this review will get changed if and when I read the next book in the series.




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