When She Returned: The Detective Kate Brown Series, Book 1

by Michelle Powers

Officer Kate Brown was meant to be left for dead on the dark streets of Birchwood Harbor. Little did they know that she would come back, stronger than ever.

Kate Brown left the police force and moved back to her hometown after being injured in the line of duty. With her rented SUV packed from floor to ceiling, she heads back to the small town of Forest Creek, after a five-year absence. While dealing with her lingering injuries and bouts of PTSD, she returns home with some uncertainty. Before her SUV veers from the big city streets and merges onto the interstate, Kate hears an announcement on the local rock station that startles her to her core. Multiple dead bodies were exhumed in the woods not far from where she is now planning to reside, and multiple women are still missing. Once she returns to the small town, she is unable to shut off the thoughts about the current case that is burdening everyone around her.

After realizing that she can’t just turn off the investigator inside of her, she digs up the courage to inquire about becoming an officer once again. Her gut is telling her that someone is lying, The biggest question now is...who.

Audible Audio

Published September 13, 2024

About the author

Michelle Powers writes the kind of thrillers that keep you up way past bedtime—just one more chapter, right? What started with her breakout novella, The First Murder, quickly snowballed into a full-blown obsession with killers, clues, and crime scenes (the fictional kind, of course). She’s the internationally recognized indie author behind the addictive Detective Willoughby series, the fan-favorite Detective Kate Brown series, and a growing stack of standalone thrillers that will make you second-guess everyone you know. In 2024, she proudly earned the coveted KDP All-Star title—a gold star for authors who live on coffee, plot twists, and sheer grit. When she’s not working her day job in logistics or plotting her next murder (on paper, we swear), Michelle can be found writing at her desk with her Rottweiler sidekick, Ozzy, snoring nearby. Follow her on Facebook for new releases, giveaways, and all things murdery and mysterious. Just maybe leave the lights on.

Reviews

[Staci · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finished this book in one sitting! I had an idea of who the culprit was but I had no idea how they’d finally get caught. There were many other twists and turns beside the main plot also… loved this fast paced read!

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sometime last year I won a giveaway on Instagram and received a slew of books in the mail from various authors all involved in the giveaway. This was one of those books, and I believe it's the first I chose to read (a year later) from that set of 12 books.

Let's dive right in then.

POV: Third person
POV Character(s): Kate Brown, Andy, Devon, Drew, the killer
Verb Tense: Past
Trigger Warnings: kidnappings, murders, depictions of violence
Spice Level: one kiss

This is a thriller, which I will sometimes pick up and read when I need a palate cleanser from romance or fantasy. I've been reading so much romance and fantasy lately I figured it was time to dive into something a bit different, and since this has been on my bookshelves so long I thought I'd give it a go.

As thrillers go, we get to dive right into the story with a bit of the killer's POV to get us invested from the get-go. The killer seems to be obsessed with the forest in this small town where he's been killing women for a decade or more.

I won't go into the blurb for this because you can find it yourself, but I will say the characters were decently fleshed out for a first-in-series. The plot was quick as thrillers tend to be, and the mysteries were unraveling bit by bit. I'd say the author hit most of the beats you expect in a fast-paced thriller, but there were some things that I'd have liked to have seen cleaned up a bit.

I would consider myself relatively not picky as a reader. I read for entertainment, and I don't mind when something is less polished if the story is good. This book has a few little nitpicky things I noticed, like an instance early on where "antiquated" was used when it should have been "acquainted" and similar little slips. Nothing too frustrating as a reader. However, I did notice there are a couple spots, specifically in Devon's POV, where the author uses present tense verbs rather than past tense or past perfect where it was warranted, and that bugged me a little bit. So a few little spots could have used a better polish or proofread, but it wasn't too egregious.

The story wasn't bad, but it was fairly predictable if you've read a handful of thrillers or more. I didn't have a problem with that in general. I did have a problem with the end that I'll tag as a spoiler for the sake of not giving too much away, so read that only if you want to know the ending.

I don't mind how this book ended and expected the killer to be caught. I won't name him, but I'll just say what threw me off was how the author had two distinct moments in which she writes that he was hit with fatal bullet shots and Kate's mother states he died from his wounds. Then in the wrap-up to the story, there's a place where she writes that the killer was caught by the FBI and confessed to the locations of the rest of his victims. I could gloss over that if it made sense in the context of the story, but it truly doesn't. He either died in the moment when the feds and police caught up to him or he was caught, but given the way it was written, it can't be both.

I suspect I've perhaps watched a few too many crime procedurals because I found some things a bit odd with how the police work played out. Andy is a crime reporter and news anchor, and I just seriously don't believe he would be close enough to the small local police force to be included on key conversations about the case. His obligation as a reporter is to share the news, and no amount of "off the record" remarks is going to make him safe enough to share sensitive information with. And Kate's work as a detective should preclude her from giving inside information on the case to either Andy or her brother Devon, but she did anyway.

To be fair, I don't think Kate should have even been included in the investigation because she wasn't even a member of the force until she moved back home and because parts of the investigation took place in the house she rented, which would naturally make her too close to the investigation in my opinion. But I'm not the writer. And to be fair, I haven't done enough research into police procedures to be certain that's true.

For an indie book, it's a good beginning. And it's a fast read.

[Judi Haley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kate Brown is on her way home after suffering injuries in a recent case on the police force. She was beaten up and left for dead. Now she just wants sometime to rest and hopefully recover from her PTSD.

On the drive home, Kate hears news of her hometown, that there are multiple dead bodies being found. She just can't turn off the police investigator in her, and she wants to help on the case. She does so, by joining the police force there and trying to solve these latest killings!

[Charlee · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an interesting book. It started off slow but got realllyyy interesting towards the middle. While reading i had no idea who the murder was. I liked the way the book told stories of the characters past to better understand their current situations. Overall a good book.

[Rachel Browning · Rating 4 out of 5]

The narrator was a little slow for my liking so I sped it up to 1.2 and it was perfect and overall she was good. The story kept me guessing and on the edge of my seat! There was a good amount of suspense and shocking twists. This was a really great thriller and not just another crime story!

[Madison Brimmer · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was extremely predictable and boring. Very blah.

[Alyce · Rating 3 out of 5]

Easy cozy mystery. Book one & suspect they’re all going to be about the same. Will probably not read others or at least wait awhile.

[Angelalynn Kramer-Thompson · Rating 5 out of 5]

when she returned

Interesting fast read. I really enjoyed this one. It is like wow I just started reading this book and now I am finished.

[Jessi Simon · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really liked the idea of the book and the plot overall was good, but there just wasn’t anything that kept me addicted to it, I wouldn’t call it a page turner. But it definitely wasn’t awful!

[Marg goby · Rating 5 out of 5]

Marg’s good night read

Gtreat read hopefully second book just as good plenty of action , and another we head woman taking control keep thses books coming