Bounty hunter Lori Anderson is enjoying life with her family and trying to put the past behind her. Unfortunately, the Miami Mob Boss is not finished with her yet and she has a debt to pay. Snatched from the street after taking her daughter to school, Lori is given an ultimatum, die now and her family dies too, or do a job for the mob and they all walk free. Lori doesn’t have much choice and although the job is a tough one, finding the mob’s numbers man, Carlton North, who is in protective custody with the FBI and about to give evidence against the mob and bring him home, Lori is sure she can pull the job off and save her family. However, the job turns out to not be as straight forward as she first thought, can Lori deliver Carlton North and save her family or are the odds stacked against her too great? Deep Dirty Truth is the third part of the Lori Anderson series and the first one from the series that I have read. Although it is number three it can be read as a standalone and there was enough information dotted throughout to be able to understand what happened in the past to lead up to the predicament Lori finds herself in. When I began reading the first thing I noticed was how well Lori’s voice came across. The book has been written in the first person, mainly from Lori’s point of view, and she is not only one kick-arse female, but she also won’t take any rubbish from people and she is fiercely protective of her family. She came across as such a genuine person you’d be forgiven for forgetting she is a fictional character. The plot is fast-paced and there was something exciting happening on every page. The book makes you feel like you are having a pure adrenaline rush from beginning to end. It genuinely felt like I was holding my breath at times. Deep Dirty Truth is dramatic, dangerous and very impressive and I hope to go back and read the other two in the series soon.

Deep Dirty Truth is the third full length novel in the Lori Anderson series and it is my favourite one so far. When Lori is forced into a car after dropping her daughter Dakota off at school the danger for all of them are in doesn’t lessen until the end of the book. Not only do they face danger from the mob but also from the rather nasty wildlife. I’m not sure which I’d be most wary of! Whilst most of the narrative concerns Lori you also get to see what is happening with JT, Dakota and Red. Each time it switched I was anxious to go back again, the timing is perfect. For this reason I read this book very quickly, I was going to read two at once but that never happened. This is definitely a book you could read in one setting. This is a series where the storylines tend to overlap. You could read this book as a standalone novel but will get so much more if you read the books in order. All of the characters and parts of the ongoing storyline develop strongly. Dakota is a character I adore, if you could read a novel where a secondary character became the primary one in another novel she would be my choice. She is brave, funny and very independent. One of the most intimidating parts was when she was going though the Everglades. It’s not somewhere I know, and not something I would plan on visiting after this. I could practically see the alligators swim past me. I was thrilled to be part of #teamlori who were all sent early copies of this book.

Deep Dirty Truth is the third book in Steph Broadribb’s Lori Anderson series, and what a winner this is. Once again, we see a strong female lead character who breaks all the stereotypes as Lori Anderson is a kick ass, as strong as an ox character, who can still be female without being cast as butch. Lori Anderson has been kidnapped after dropping her daughter off at school and finds herself a few hours later in a dress and being presented to Old Man Bonchese, the head of the Miami Mob. The man that has put a price on her head for killing her former husband and a made guy with the Mob. He puts a proposition to her, find his former right-hand man Carlton North and return him to the mob, and he will remove the price on her head. Fail then the price remains and extends to those who she loves. It is when he tells her, that North is in protective custody with he FBI so that he can be a witness at a trial in Tallahassee. Lori realises she is on a hiding to nothing, but knows she has to succeed whatever the cost. What she did not realise was that breaking North out of protective custody was the easiest part of the job. It would be getting him back to Old Man Bonchese avoiding the FBI and more importantly members of the Miami Mob who want to see North and Anderson dead and would not stop at anything. With daughter and her lover well out of reach of the mob, North and Lori fight to what could be there end to get back to Miami. While at the same time trying work out who is friendly and who would happily put a bullet in them. Steph Broadribb has written one of the best books of 2019 it is that good to state that so early. It is no wonder this series is being optioned for film, still see Reece Witherspoon as Lori, but that might be more about me than her. Winner, winner, chicken dinner!

My love for this series has grown as each of the three books has come out. Lori hasn’t had a great life until now. Married to an abusive man who turned out also to be a mobster, she incurred the wrath of the Miami mafia boss after her husband was shot dead. She is only now beginning to get her life back on track, bring her daughter Dakota together with her new man, J.T. and living a good life as a bounty hunter in Florida. But this is Lori and that peace is never going to last. To keep Dakota and J.T. safe she is forced to a deal with the mafia. One of their trusted henchmen, their accountant North, has turned informer and is now in FBI protective custody awaiting the trial of the aforementioned Mafioso. The mafia, unsurprisingly, want North back and if Lori doesn’t deliver him on deadline, her small family will never be safe again. To track North down and spring him from custody won’t be easy, and she knows she’ll have to do it alone, because she needs J.T. to keep Dakota safe while she’s gone. To make matters worse she only has 48 hours. And what a whirlwind 48 hours that is! Lori moves with the speed of lightning, encountering different dangers and some pretty squirm making characters at every turn. There’s danger and double dealing; in the fetid atmosphere of the Everglades there is more than one kind of dangerous predator at loose and Lori has trouble knowing who to trust. But then, hasn’t that always been Lori’s problem? Not without cause, she does not trust easily, and this leads her to manage everything she comes up against alone. Exciting, addictive, full of twists, this is Lori fighting for her life again. A super-fast pace, smart mouthed prose to die for and a plot that will keep your heart in your mouth as you watch Lori navigate the minefields between the devil and the deep blue sea. Verdict: Deep Dirty Truth is the best Lori book yet and I love her more every book.

The author gets really ambitious in this book, when Lori gets blackmailed into doing a job for the head honcho of the Miami Mob, a man whose vendetta has been haunting her since the events of book one and who she needs to get off her back if she is ever going to manage a quiet life with JT and their daughter, Dakota. That possibility seems to get further and further away throughout the course of this novel, as Lori is once again separated from JT and her daughter, chasing down a mobster-turned-rat, with only 48 hours to find him. Steph keeps finding ways to ramp up the stakes with every book, and finding new ways of testing Lori and her loyalties. She has to, once again, involve herself with Alex Munroe, the FBI agent who has his own agenda and whose motives she can never 100% trust. Again, nothing is as straight-forward as it seems and she has to evaluate whose side she is really on, whilst only truly being able to rely on herself to get everyone out of trouble. This is a fantastic book for anyone who loves a gangster story, and there is the most marvellous battle towards the end that would grace the screen of any mob movie you ever saw. In fact, these books would make perfect films, I would definitely go and watch them (IF Sam Elliott is playing Red – see above – non-negotiable!) but, until that happens, the story completely comes alive on the page and is surely something you should all be reading to take your minds off the current situation we find ourselves in. Anything more completely unlike what you are currently experiencing locked in at home in the UK you’ll be hard-pushed to find, and it will sweep you out of reality for a little while, without requiring you to strain yourself, the author has done all the heavy lifting in the flow of the writing. I still find it hard to believe she is from Buckinghamshire!