Never Alone (A Megan McGinn Novel) Paperback – June 8, 2014

Megan McGinn #1

by C.J. Carpenter

NYPD detective Megan McGinn has just solved the most important case of her career, and yet she has reached her breaking point. Struggling under the weight of her broken family and the brutality of her job, Megan is ready to walk away from the force--until the bizarre, ritualistic murder of a young woman brings her back.When the killer gets too close, stalking her from the shadows, Megan becomes trapped in a highstakes game of cat and mouse. To understand the mind of a murderer, Megan must walk a treacherous path. And the danger is only beginning.

Unknown Binding

First published June 1, 2014

Reviews

[ReadAlongWithSue recovering from a stroke★⋆. ࿐࿔ · Rating 4 out of 5]

A detective novel with loads of backlog and history on Megan McGinn.

She’s following in her Fathers footsteps with her job. She’s a dynamic and hard female. Pressing on regardless to get to the bottom of things.

They’ve just recently put their Mother into a home as she suffers from Alzheimer’s.
Another difficult thing to deal with.

I’d gone off of DI stories as I was reading too many of them last year and they were all merging into one.

This one though definitely has some bite.

I’ve had this on my TBR forever! So the subsequent books in this series are available.

[AJourneyWithoutMap · Rating 4 out of 5]

Never Alone by C.J. Carpenter is an absorbing procedural thriller in which an Irish Catholic New York City Homicide Detective Megan McGinn is thrust into a cat and mouse game with a psychotic killer shortly after she had solved a long and winding high-profile case. With the criminal tucked away in a mental institution, Megan was ready to take a break when a college-educated young woman Shannon McAllister was found brutally murdered. She was physically and emotionally worn out. The funeral of her father, who was an NYPD veteran, was held a day earlier. Her mother who has Alzheimer’s needed to be shifted to a home. Megan really needed a break.

But when the murdered young woman’s father exerted pressure on the police department, the order to swiftly act on the case came from the top. When Megan McGinn, along with her partner Detective Sam Nappa, investigated the case, they discovered a lot of peculiarities. The victim’s nails were cut, nothing was stolen and no fingerprints found. But there was a loaf of Irish soda bread baking in the oven and a plain gold ring sewn into her crotch. When Shannon McAllister’s professor with whom she had recently ended an affair was questioned, he has an alibi. Megan reached a dead end when she started receiving derisive text messages from the victim’s phone which, apparently, the killer must have taken. Things went horribly wrong when Megan questioned the professor again. She’s placed on leave, forcing her to keep working covertly.

Never Alone by C.J. Carpenter is suspenseful and extremely well-paced. Megan is a strong character, though with her own flaws, and ably supported by her partner. The story is well-conceived and the writing superbly done. Readers are most likely to watch out for the next installment of Megan McGinn novel.

[Tricia Adams · Rating 1 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book. I really did. I thought the storyline was actually interesting, but the execution was the lacking finesse needed to pull off a mystery/thriller. The characters were interesting, but poorly fleshed out. The dialogue was often clunky and unnatural. And while I'm not afraid to read a book with some profanity in it, it seemed like the author used it too liberally in this book. Like whenever a detective would have an "aha" moment it was followed by a string of expletives instead of skillful writing. I might have been willing to overlook these things though if the mystery had been developed better. The storyline was developing okay in the first half of the book, but I began to notice how little information the author was actually giving up about what was going on. You'd expect to be getting some hints that you could start to piece together. That's part of the excitement of a mystery, trying to put the pieces together to see if you can figure it out. Before you knew it though, you were at the end of the book where all the bits of information you never even got a hint of previously start spilling out, and the killer is unceremoniously revealed. It was a total letdown.

[Lara Girdler · Rating 5 out of 5]

A good mystery novel, especially a murder mystery, is not one I will ever run from – this one is no exception! The story jumps right in from the moment the book is opened, there’s one chapter, just one chapter of character introduction, setting the story, so to speak and then BAM right after her father’s funeral Meg McGinn is pulled into the scene of a murder that will turn her whole way of thinking about life, love, and her job on its head. We work through the case with her, the scene is clean of every possible clue – no fingerprints, no DNA, no hair out of place, no nothing. She and her team have very little to go on and yet they have to find out who murdered this young woman. Just as she thinks she’s getting to the bottom of the case and is hot on the heels of the murderer BAM there’s another twist in the case.
I have not had the privilege of reading a “light” book in a while, recently I have had a lot of heavy reading memoirs to review and it was nice to switch genre’s and pick up on something that I have come to love while doing these reviews - a murder mystery! This book is fast paced, compelling, and keeps the reader questioning the twists and turns within the pages of the novel. We wonder what has happened, who committed this heinous crime, and how does it tie back to Meg McGinn and her family. I cannot say enough about this wonderfully told story, I will say that it ranks right along the same lines as some of the others I’ve read lately, including the James Patterson Women’s Murder Club series, and Rachel Grant’s Body of Evidence. A good female detective brings the reader in; we latch onto her and her story and want nothing more than to see her succeed! Meg McGinn is no different, she presents herself as a strong woman who truly does not need anyone, or anything, yet we know that deep down she’s cracking, and we begin to see her for who she truly is. This book not only shares her story, but keeps the reader on their toes until the very end when a twist of major proportions is thrown your way!
Definitely one I am recommending to anyone who reads James Patterson and Rachel Grant, or anyone looking to dip their toes into the world of murder mysteries!
Five out of Five Stars for Never Alone
**I received a copy of this novel from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review**

[Teena in Toronto · Rating 4 out of 5]

Megan, like her dad, is a cop. Her father has just died and she and her brother have had to put her mother in a nursing home because she has Alzheimer's. Megan was going to take some time off but her partner, Nappa, convinces her to work on a case with him. A young woman has been killed and her body was left in a bizarre manner.

As Megan and Nappa investigate, the killer gets a little too close to Megan which makes her even more determined to find the killer.

This is the first book I've read by this author and I enjoyed it. I liked the writing style and found that that it moved at a good pace. It is written in third person perspective with most of the focus on Megan. I thought the ending came together really quickly, though, and I kind of when "huh?" ... I wasn't really buying it the "whodunnit". As a head's up, there is a lot of swearing and there is some adult activity which would probably not be appropriate for a younger reader.

I liked Megan. She likes to drink and swear and tells you what she's thinking .. there's no BSing with her. She has a lot going on with her beloved father's recent death, her mother's illness and her stressful job. I liked her humour and sarcasm. Nappa sounds like a great guy and a good friend to Megan, which she really needs. It would be interesting to see if they get together sometime in the future.

I'm assuming this is the first in a series (I hope so) and I look forward to reading future books by this author.

Blog review post: http://www.teenaintoronto.com/2014/05...

[Angela Oatham · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I started reading Never Alone I thought that I was reading the second or third in a series. References kept being made to her previous case when she caught and imprisoned a serial killer. I stopped reading and went in search of the previous books only to find there weren’t any so I returned to Never Alone and was very glad I did.
Megan Mcginn is worn out from her previous case and mourning the loss of her father and the responsibility of her sick mother. However her partner persuades her to take on a new case in which a young woman has been murdered. If you love serial killers this is definitely a book for you. The crimes are disturbing the clues are sparse and the killer is on Megan’s trail. It’s a great storyline with realistic and well developed characters. It’s not spoiled for me by too much romance (apologies if you like a bit of love with your crime) and the pace is maintained throughout making it difficult to put down.
The only negative for me was the ending. When I’ve invested time in reading a crime novel I want a decent amount of pages to enjoy the big reveal at the end. The ending of this book felt extremely rushed as Megan ran from one place to the next uncovering the truth in what felt like five minutes. The finale was good don’t get me wrong but I felt a bit cheated at the end of what had been a great read. Overall I enjoyed this debut novel and look forward to reading more from this author.

[Suspense Magazine · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Never Alone,” a Megan McGinn novel, has all the ingredients of a blockbuster police thriller and it delivers on every level.
With Megan McGinn, C.J. Carpenter has given us fractured protagonist, who like a prizefighter, keeps getting hit, yet she never stays down. When we first meet Megan, she has had enough. It’s time to leave the force and the job she loves. Life has thrown too many punches: She has just come off of the hardest case of her career; her father, her mentor and support system, has passed away; and her mother, an Alzheimer’s patient, is being placed in a nursing home. But then she is approached by her partner, Sam Nappa, about a new case. He just wants her to take a look at the crime scene, that’s all.
She’s hooked.
We will follow Megan through the twists and turns of a case involving the deaths of young women by the serial killer with a bizarre MO. It is a case that will hit close to home for our hero, especially after she realizes the killer is taunting her...stalking her!
“Never Alone” will ramp up the adrenaline with each new death and each new clue. You will eat, sleep, and strategize with Megan and Sam until the last page when the killer is revealed. You will be thankful Megan McGinn never retired and you will anxiously wait for C.J. Carpenter’s next installment of the Megan McGinn series.
Reviewed by J.M. LeDuc, author of “Sin,” published by Suspense Publishing, an imprint of Suspense Publishing

[Marika Charalambous · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read my full review at http://mysterysequels.com/never-alone...

Megan McGinn is an Irish catholic police detective with the NYPD. She comes from a family of police officers, her father having been one in his time as well. Megan has just solved a major crime, putting behind bars a very dangerous serial killer (I’d love to read a book about that particular case), so now she is quite famous nationwide.

The actual crime story is suspenseful and fast pacing, something that I really enjoyed, as I love turning the pages to see what comes next. The crimes are horrific and honestly I don’t think I’ve ever read anywhere about this type of MO before. I shuddered just to think about it. Definitely not scenes for the faint of heart.

My only gripe about story line in the book is the hurried ending. I would have never thought that the killer would end up being the one who was, as there was truly nothing leading up to that conclusion. I actually had to read the last few pages twice to see whether I missed a clue somewhere along the way. The second time it was just as puzzling as the first.

Overall a great whodunit crime novel with lots of action, great characters that can easily be developed in the next book, and a fun writing style that I enjoyed following.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Homicide Detective Megan McGinn has reached a crossroads in her young life/career; she has just successfully closed out a high-profile murder investigation, but the case took its toll. Burdened with the recent sudden and unexpected death of her homicide detective father, and the failing mental health of her semi-estranged mother, Megan McGinn is ready to shut down and leave the force. Her partner, Det.Sam Nappa, coaxes her to look at one last case, a high-profile murder which resonates with Megan and a traumatic incident from her past, and the bizarre and sickening circumstances surrounding what quickly become multiple murders draw Megan into an investigation which rapidly becomes personal and extremely dangerous. In Never Alone, C.J. Carpenter introduces us to a protagonist of complexity and sympathy in Det. Megan McGinn. Skillfully rendered and believably fleshed out, Megan McGinn is a character whom this reader wants to hear more about, and Ms. Carpenter's debut novel has done a wonderful job of whetting the appetite and laying the foundation for future stories of Detective McGinn. Kudos to C.J. Carpenter on crafting engaging characters wrapped up in a fine mystery, and for leaving this reader anxiously awaiting the further exploits of Megan McGinn. Nicely done!

[K · Rating 4 out of 5]

Never Alone by C. J. Carpenter is a book about an Irish Catholic NYC Homicide Detective by the name of Megan McGinn, who had just closed out an important case leaving her with a bit of notoriety. Having just lost her father, she is ready to just throw in her detective’s badge.

The novel begins with a plunge into spiritual traces, faith and lack thereof, murder, death and suspense. McGinn’s latest case focuses on Irish Catholic principles, in turn, truly striking close to home for her. Throughout the case McGinn faces struggles that remind her of her past and how she feels to be in solitary, but ultimately leads to her discovering that one is truly never alone.

I will definitely read more by C.J. Carpenter, for she has a talent for fashioning realistic and relatable characters. She is wonderful with forming a mind of restlessness throughout her scenes. I anticipate a magnificent career in this debut author’s future.

An Advanced Readers Copy was provided by the publisher in return for an honest review.

[Defne · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really liked Meghan. I love that she has a foul mouth and that she is (mostly) a strong, independent woman. I am not used to such gruesome mysteries but it was interesting. I liked the weird family dynamics. What I didn't like was she was presented as a non-religious character but does a 180 later on in the book. I liked her better when she didn't need a religious token to keep her safe or when she didn't see dreams that were borderline visions.

Other than that it was a fun read. The only other semi-issue I had was the love interest. I thought it was unnecessary and a but cliché; however, if it had to be in the book, it should have been in the book more.

[Icy-Cobwebs-Crossing-SpaceTime · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review: NEVER ALONE

Not just a police procedural (though the protagonist is a foul-mouthed, moody, multitasking NYPD detective), NEVER ALONE holds a complex mystery interwoven with emotional.entanglements, parental demise, older-adult issues including Alzheimer's and care homes and which sibling pays what. There's hardly a relaxing breath for the reader, or for the detective and her partner, just as for detectives worldwide. The reader won't be bored, and will keep puzzling over the bizarre murder sequence.

[Cindy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Never Alone is a story about detectives and the murderers they hunt. I felt Magan was a strong lead character but think Nappa should have played a stronger role and that the relationship between the two should have gotten farther than it did. The story line moved along well until the very end. I felt everything was very hurried at the end as if the author only had three pages to put as much as she could to get to the "who done it".
I will be awaiting the next book by C.J. Carpenter to see what will happen between Nappa and Magan.

[Bookworm LLC · Rating 3 out of 5]

Never Alone is a story about detectives and the murderers they hunt. I felt Magan was a strong lead character but think Nappa should have played a stronger role and that the relationship between the two should have gotten farther than it did. The story line moved along well until the very end. I felt everything was very hurried at the end as if the author only had three pages to put as much as she could to get to the "who done it".
I will be awaiting the next book by C.J. Carpenter to see what will happen between Nappa and Magan.

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Already under a lot of stress with the recent death of her father and with her mother in late-stage Alzheimer's, NYPD detective Megan McGinn finds herself dealing with the murder of a young graduate student that has a bizarre MO. The killer seems to be taunting Megan as well. Intense thriller, a bit on the dark side but a fast read. Megan seems to have a snarky demeanor somewhat similar to Jane Rizzoli.

[Pam · Rating 3 out of 5]

tried to have all the qualities of a serial killer novel with damaged detective but it just didn't gel

[Jan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Engaging...