Twice Burned is a decent suspense novel featuring some distracting red herrings, some very sick supporting characters, and a very nice romance on the side. Judging from AAR’s review of Coffey’s last novel, this seems to be an improved effort but it’s one that could use still more improvement.

Léa Hardy’s life is a mess. Her brother, Ted, was just convicted of the murder of his wife and children, and Léa doesn’t believe he did it. Since Ted won’t fight the conviction or even talk to his lawyer, Léa determines to find out what really happened and save her brother. Léa has been getting notes telling her if she comes to her old home town, the note sender will tell her who the real murderer is. Unfortunately, she’s a social worker who’s short on funds. She does have her childhood home though, and though it holds many bad memories – it’s where her father killed her mother and himself – she decides to move back home, fix up the house so she can sell it, and find the real murderer. When she moves home, she reacquaints herself with neighbor Mick Conklin. Léa had a crush on Mick years ago, and he ends up helping her with the house and her investigation.

Léa has a hard time when she arrives back in town. The townspeople are not friendly. Her family had been looked down on because her father was a vicious bad-tempered, alcoholic. Léa is initially defensive and jumpy, but she begins to work toward clearing her brother, she gets friendlier with Mick, and she becomes more comfortable with her decision to move.

Mick is a good guy, a nice and appealing beta hero. He owns a construction company. Léa can’t afford to hire him, but he does help her with her home as they become closer. Mick has a huge problem to deal with, though – his daughter, Heather. She’s come to live with him after her neglectful mother remarried. Heather is depressed, and Mick doesn’t know how to deal with her and so welcomes Léa’s help.

Considering all that was going on in her life, Léa actually had quite a positive attitude. Her dedication to her brother was admirable, and her devotion toward helping Mick’s troubled daughter Heather was admirable as well. Heather added a nice touch to the story, but her depression resolved too easily. A scare and some bonding, and she snapped out of it. Her relationship with Léa added a nice touch to the story. They seemed almost like girlfriends, and Heather seemed more mature than her years. It was also nice to see that she could take care of herself in a tough situation. As for Mick and Léa’s relationship, it was nice and pleasant, but not what I would call hot or exciting. It is best described it as “frienship plus.” While I enjoyed how their attraction grew into a comfortable relationship, some chemistry would have been nice.

But the secondary characters and too many red herrings are what made me knock this down a grade from what probably would have been a B. There were a lot of secondary characters – too many to list here, and some of them were really sicko. (If you’ve read Linda Howard’s Shades of Twilight, one of them will be familiar). It was hard to believe that there were so many disturbed people in town who all hated the same person and who easily have killed her. There are so many suspects that any and or all could have been the real killer. When the focus is on Léa, Mick, and Heather, the story works far better than when it’s on who really killed Ted’s wife and children. And it didn’t help that the sheriff was another character who was a little too cliché for me; he was determined to run the bad seed (Léa) back out of town and not believe her.

Twice Burned isn’t a stellar book, but it has its moments. If you can set aside the sickos and was still clichés, you’ll find some nicely written stuff..just not enough of it.