Reviewed by Asher Syed for Readers' Favorite

In the crime fiction Her Dark Grave by Carolyn Arnold, detectives Madison and Terry investigate the gruesome murder of Tara Jackson. Tara's distraught roommate, Christina, hints at a romantic involvement with someone named Gabe. Madison and Terry gather information about Tara's involvement with a charity, discover suspicious items in a tote bag at a soup kitchen, and find her suitcase among homeless individuals' belongings in a park. Interrogating Gabe yields no concrete evidence, but when a similar murder occurs to victim Johanna Chase, Madison suggests showing Gabe's photo to a key witness. Leaving no stone unturned, the detectives investigate Tara's dating app connections and discover a silver truck near a crime scene. Links start to emerge with an older cold case, and the detectives believe they are dealing with a brutal serial killer—a serial killer who is secretly watching Madison's every move.

Her Dark Grave is book twelve in the prolific Carolyn Arnold's Detective Madison Knight series. The novel reads as a standalone, and I had no trouble whatsoever following Madison's personal life, which is tied in loosely as a subplot. Arnold is a master of classic crime twists, but weaving through Tara's alternating lifestyles and the men she's dated by scrolling through matches on a dating app really added a contemporary spin to the overall mystery. I liked that we had the killer themselves as a narrator and were brought along as he stalked his lineup of victims up to the moment of meeting. This includes Madison, whom he is also stalking, but Arnold keeps us in the dark on who he actually is. The tension threads through every single scene, and the locations and characters all come to life while the body count rises. Overall, this is a well-written and fully immersive novel, and I will absolutely be going back to Arnold's other books in the series for more. Very highly recommended.