Review: Lethal Beauty by Lis Wiehl

This is the third book is the Mia Quinn series, but I do not believe you have to read them in order. I have not, and I really didn't have a problem following along with the storyline.

Publication Date: March 3, 2015

Synopsis:
The murder Mia is prosecuting seems like an open and shut case--until the accused claims he was the real victim and that the dead girl attacked him first. The tabloids dub her a "lethal beauty." Still, a conviction seems imminent. Then a key witness goes missing. Just when it looks like the killer could walk free, the dead woman's mother takes matters into her own hands.
Meanwhile, Charlie Carlson, a Seattle homicide detective, is investigating the murder of a man whose body washed up on the beach of Puget Sound, but he's got little to go on. He has no dental work, fingerprints aren't on file, and he doesn't match any missing person reports. Then a church pianist is senselessly gunned down before horrified parishioners.

Thoughts:
While I did really enjoy this book, I couldn't bring myself to rate it any higher than a 3.5 stars. Why? Well, I didn't like it enough to consider it a 4 star book, but it wasn't mediocre, so I guess that's where the .5 star rating came in.
I actually had no idea, going in to this, that there would be a theme of immigration occurring throughout the book. It was a genuine surprise, but I did find that to be quite pleasant, as immigration isn't something that is commonly dealt with in books. At least not in the books I've read.
There really isn't too much I can say about the plot without giving away what happens in the book, but I will say that at times, I found the book to drag a little. This was the first book in awhile that took me more than just a couple of days to finish. So yes, it was enjoyable, but maybe you should prepare yourself for it to drag a little around the middle of the book. Or it might just be me finally coming out of my Mystery & Thriller phase.
I felt like the ending was a bit abrupt, and while it tied up almost all of its loose ends, there were a couple of things I still wanted to know. For example, the "romance" in this book, I had really wanted to see if there would be any further development or if any thing more would come out of it, especially since one of the last chapters was hinting at it. But I was disappointed when the book ended without clearing up that bit. I guess this was the author's way of keeping us interested enough to read the next book.

Characters:
I didn't find myself connecting with any of the characters too much. The only characters that I connected more with, happened to be the Chinese characters in this book. I feel more strongly toward their situation than I did with any other characters.

I wanted to feel more for Mia, but seeing as I haven't read the first two books, I think I wasn't really able to connect with her as much as a reader who had followed the entire series would have.

Overall:
3.5 stars. I would recommend it to others, but I think it might be a good idea to pick up the first two books before reading this. I just feel like the characters would be easier to connect with and it would be more enjoyable that way.

Acknowledgements:
Thank you to NetGalley for hosting this. Thank you also to Thomas Nelson for putting this up on NetGalley and approving my request to read and review this.