Book Review: Abandoned, Max Revere – Book #5

Author: Allison Brennan
Book Name: Abandoned
Release Date: August 14, 2018
Series: Max Revere
Order: #5
Genre: Mystery/Suspense
Overall SPA: 4 Stars

Blurb: Investigative reporter Max Revere has cracked many cases, but the one investigation she’s never attempted is the mystery from her own past. Her mother abandoned her when she was nine, sending her periodic postcards, but never returning to reclaim her daughter. Seven years after the postcards stop coming, Martha Revere is declared legally dead, with no sign of what may have happened to her. Until now.

With a single clue―that her mother’s car disappeared sixteen years ago in a small town on the Chesapeake Bay―Max drops everything to finally seek the truth. As Max investigates, and her mother’s story unfolds, she realizes that Martha teamed up with a con man. They traveled the world living off Martha’s trust and money they conned from others.

Though no one claims to know anything about Martha or her disappearance, Max suspects more than one person is lying. When she learns the FBI has an active investigation into the con man, Max knows she’s on the right path. But as Max digs into the dark secrets of this idyllic community, the only thing she might find is the same violent end as her mother.

New York Times bestselling author Allison Brennan weaves the intimate, unputdownable story of an investigator confronting the most important–and most dangerous–mystery of her career.

Main SPA Evaluation Areas:

Characters: 4/5 Stars
Believability: 3.5/5 Stars
Personal Opinion: 4/5 Stars

This one was better than the last because you get back to Max being more of the focus of the story. This one even more so than most because you get to delve into the history of her mother and all that was going on behind her leaving Max behind.

There were bits of this that tended to push hard on the believability barriers with some pretty heavy coincidences and Max’s newest love interest being a little close to insta-love, but these only dinged my rating a little bit. I was still impressed with the fact that enough is left open along the way that you don’t know for certain what happened with Max’s mother until deep into the story.

It is going to be interesting to see how, or if, the series continues from here after the events in this book because so much will need to change for Max. Considering this was published a year ago and I don’t see the next book yet, I don’t know for sure if there will be another one or if this closed out the series. The way it ended, it could go either way and I’d, mostly, be okay with it since there really aren’t any lose threads left hanging. I would be disappointed as I’ve really enjoyed Max and I am not ready to be done with her yet.