The Dangerous Edge of Things

Tai Randolph Mysteries #1

by Tina Whittle

Tai Randolph is still adjusting to a newly inherited Confederate-themed gun shop when she gets a big shock: a murdered corpse in her brother's driveway. Worse, her respectable sibling has fled to the Bahamas, leaving her to deal with the homicide and questions from the Atlanta PD. Complicating her plan to clear the family name is Trey Seaver, field agent for an exclusive corporate security firm hired to investigate the crime. Trey, recovering from a car accident that left him cognitively and emotionally damaged, is fearless, focused, and - to Tai's dismay - utterly impervious to bribes, threats, and clever deceptions.

Tai's investigations lead from the cold-eyed glamour of Atlanta's adult entertainment scene to the gilded treachery of Tuxedo Road. Potential suspects abound. But it takes another murder - and threats to her own life - to make her realize that to solve this crime, she has to trust the most dangerous man she's ever met....

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Mystery Thriller, Audiobook, Romantic Suspense, Romance, Crime

304 pages, Paperback

First published May 27, 2010

About the author

Tina Whittle’s Tai Randolph/Trey Seaver series — featuring intrepid gunshop owner Tai and her corporate security agent partner Trey — has garnered starred reviews in Kirkus, Publisher’s Weekly, Booklist, and Library Journal. Published by Poisoned Pen Press, this Atlanta-based series debuted with The Dangerous Edge of Things, followed by Darker Than Any Shadow (2012), Blood, Ash and Bone (2013), Deeper Than the Grave (2015), and Reckoning and Ruin (2017). The sixth book in the series — Necessary Ends — was released in April 2018.

A Derringer finalist and two-time nominee for Georgia Author of the Year, Whittle has published her short fiction in The Savannah Literary Journal, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, and Gulf Stream, which selected her story “Lost Causes and Other Reasons to Live” as the 2004 winner of their Mystery Fiction contest. When not writing or reading, she enjoys boxing, sushi, tarot reading, and spending time with her family (one husband, one daughter, and one neurotic Maltese).

Reviews

[Tina Whittle · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't feel the least bit of qualm about popping five stars on my own book because what I'me reviewing here is not my book (exactly) but Renee Raudman's work as the narrator. A performance worthy listening to, even if you've already read the book, just to savor a true artist at work. Cadence, tone, pacing, the character nuance -- she truly, as another Goodreads reviewer noted, knocks it out of the park.

[Laura · Rating 2 out of 5]

In The Dangerous Edge of Things Whittle introduces us to Teresa Ann Randolph (she goes by Tai for short). Previously a ghost tour guide in Savannah, she recently returned to Atlanta where her brother (and other mostly deceased members of her family) lives. She's jointly inherited a Confederate gun shop along with her brother, and unlike him, she wants to try to turn it into a viable business. The story starts with Tai staying at her brother's house until she gets on her feet. She got curious about a parked car across the street from her brother's driveway as it had been there for an inordinately long time. Turns out the woman slumped over the wheel isn't moving b/c she's been shot. Enter the police.

Tai's older brother, Eric, is conveniently in the Bahamas on business. This seems a bit too convenient for the police, especially once it turns out that the dead young lady, Eliza, was planning to meet with Eric just before her death. Tai is also a suspect--why I'm not sure, although the police don't always need a good reason, and perhaps the fact that she is a female gun store owner was enough for them. In any case, in fiction land former ghost tour guides become detectives when murder happens near them. Based on that truth, Tai jumps right into the thick of the action, and won't rest until the murderer is apprehended.

All good detectives have a side kick, and Tai's is a former police officer named Trey, who resigned after a traumatic head injury changed his ability to read the nuances in situations. He now lives in a rigid, literally black and white world. Whittle's skills as a writer shone best here--she did a great job giving Trey a believable personality, and showing his evolving relationship with Tai. He has trouble explaining how he feels sometimes. ""I'm trying to explain something to you,' he said, 'and I can't. It's about those, and Gabriella, and about the accident itself, but...I'm looking for a word.' I shook my head. 'There isn't one. It's too much for words.' He thought about that. 'Yes,' he said finally. 'Perhaps you're right.'"

Bottom line: Tai is a quirky protagonist, and she works well paired with Trey. I like what Whittle was trying to do, but Tai's motives for entangling herself in a very dangerous situation are unclear at best. Added to that, the story line is difficult to follow, the ending is more of an "Oh, I guess that's the piece that fits" rather than a satisfying conclusion to a truly interesting puzzle, and some parts just seemed far-fetched. For instance, Eric seems like he would have more of a motivation to solve the mystery than Tai, but he returns from the Bahamas only to remain extremely peripheral--even though his sister's life has apparently been threatened several times. Also, I had a hard time wrapping my mind around what exactly Phoenix does. They are certainly an odd company. Given 2 stars or a rating of "average". Not a bad pick if you want a light vacation read. Worth checking out of the library. The quotes that follow show that Whittle definitely has potential as a writer in future books. She's an author to watch.

"He bit his words back. I didn't pry further. There are minefields in everyone's psyche, and the best thing you can do when you realize you've stepped into one is to stop moving. So I did."

"The Beau Elan cafe pulsed with the same 'uniquely familiar' vibe that permeates most coffeehouses. Hardwood floors, bistro chairs, folkish artwork. There was a fake moose head on the purple wall to show they had a sense of humor. Whatever. They had tea. Trey was content."

"I need to go to the bathroom first, okay?"
His eyes sharpened. He was on point now, his curiosity quickening into suspicion.
"Feminine stuff," I said.
I could sense the gears clicking and meshing in his brain, but he didn't argue. It's a rule: no man, no matter how screwed up, dares to question the phrase "feminine stuff."
Even if he suspects you're being technically truthful, but deliberately evasive."

"He was Trey. And he was separated from me by a gulf far wider than a few feet of leather upholstery. I watched him drive away and thought of empty spaces. But I also thought of bridges."

[Emmalynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5-4 stars. It was a good book that was a tad longer than it needed to be. Good mystery, good characters, good start to the series.

[Karla Brandenburg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tai Randolph has inherited a gun shop, so she picks up her life and moves in with her brother while she's relocating, only to find a dead woman sitting outside her brother's house. Her brother, away at training, directs her to a hotel for her own safety, but Tai isn't so easily bossed around. When she returns to her brother's house after her police interview, she discovers a private security firm "cleaning up" details that might link her brother to the dead woman. And things only escalate from there.

Trey Seavers is her "personal protection" agent, assigned to follow her around and keep her out of trouble. Trey, an ex-cop with a traumatic brain injury, is a very black and white kinda guy. His points of reference have changed since the accident, so he is strictly business in order to keep focused. Watching Tai is anything but a straightforward assignment, and she disrupts his orderly routines.

The mystery escalates as more bodies fall in the wake of whatever is going on, and Ms. Whittle takes us on a wild ride of espionage, cover-ups and betrayal, presenting us with a host of guilty parties all eligible to be murder suspects. I especially liked the pairing of Tai, a somewhat free-spirited loose cannon, with the orderly, OCD Trey, the way they counterbalanced each other and complimented each other. A well laid out whodunit that kept me reading.

[Kathy Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

What an interesting mystery! Tai Randolph is new in Atlanta having inherited her Uncle's gun shop. She is staying with her older brother while getting set up and organized. When she returns to his house one day, she finds a murdered young woman in a car in front of the house. Her brother has gone to the Bahamas for a work conference and is not answering his phone as quickly as Tai would like.

Tai immediately gets involved in a very complicated situation that has her dealing with her brother's employer Phoenix - a security firm. She is also introduced to Trey Seaver who is assigned to protect her. Trey is a fascinating character because he had suffered a traumatic brain injury and has had to rebuild his life with significant changes to his personality. Tai didn't know him before the injury and is pretty good at accepting Trey as he is now.

They mystery was complex and so was the relationship between Tai and Trey. I can't wait to read more books in this series to learn more about both of them.

[Terry Odell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every once in a while you read a book and wonder how in the world you hadn't read anything by this author before. The Dangerous Edge of Things was that kind of book for me. Tina Whittle has a smart, sassy voice that fills the page with vivid descriptions, a hot Atlanta setting, and a cast of characters that will keep you turning pages. By pairing her reluctant heroine with a brain-damaged partner, she's created a combo that makes you want to read the next book. Tai Randolph inherited a gun shop, but she discovers a dead body, and things escalate from there. Trey Seaver was injured in an accident, and although he's a to-die-for hunk of a guy, his brain doesn't work the way it used to, which frustrates him—and Tai.

I was given a copy of the book with a request for an honest review.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just finished it. This is an engaging mystery, written clean and crisp, a page turner with nary a misstep. This is not my usual genre, but I was immediately taken in by the Good Old Boys vs. New Money world that the author recreates in this Atlanta mystery. Trey, the Ice Man who heads a heady investigation into the scandals of an elite society, is an interesting character, brain damaged into a type of disorder that keeps him obsessive and logical, almost like a sexy Mr Data addicted to Pellegrino bubbling water. The writing just leaps off the page, sparing, but at the same time poetic. This debut novel marks a start of a promising career.

[April · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to like this mystery/thriller more than I did. I get the heroine falling for the hunky but brain damaged man....the brain damage is the modern thing that makes him a "bad boy." But the attraction didn't seem quite clear to me. I liked the setup....a young punkish female inheriting a Confederate gun shop near Atlanta, but not much was done with that part of the book. For me, there was something missing.

[Brandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love the quirky characters! Very original series!

[Emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

I got a little confused here and there but I am really liking the characters.

[Tammy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very intriguing book that I just happened across. I loved Tia! She was quite a gal with lots of pluck. When she discovers a a dead body she has the usual reaction of getting sick. Then she is thrown into her brothers world of high society people who are not what they seem. Also he hires a firm who sends Trey to watch over her. He is a different guy and as you read the book you find out how different and why. They work together trying to find out how and why Eliza was murdered and they have some crazy things happen to them. I did laugh a few times hearing Tia talk and relate to people, I really enjoyed this one and am getting the next in the series

[Linda · Rating 2 out of 5]

This would be a good book to take on vacation, if female, and planning on spending time sitting by the pool or on a sandy beach. I say “if female” because there is not enough action to entertain male readers, in my opinion. A very easy read dangerously bordering on chick-lit. The Phoenix Company, as a Business, could have had a more in-depth explanation of it’s operation. Exactly what was it? Some kind of high end personal security for hire but details were very sketchy. I do not even know why the Adams senatorial candidate had a role in the book since he had nothing at all to do with the story. I think this author has potential but is unlikely to ever win an Edgar Award.

[Elizabeth · Rating 2 out of 5]

There needs to be a limit to authors turning their characters into sleuths for no good reason. In this first of a series of books, Tai Randoph finds a dead woman in a car across the street from her brother's house. Tai recently moved in with her brother when they inherited a gun shop from their uncle. Tai's former occupation was ghost tour host so of course she's eminently qualified to search for the killer of a woman she never met.

The best things about this book were the title and a supporting character who suffered brain damage so he thinks and acts differently.

[Kathleen Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fast-paced plot, snappy dialog, engaging characters--I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Of special note is the very intriguing (and very sexy) character of Trey Seaver, whose memories, personality, and very identity are compromised by the traumatic brain injury he suffered years ago. The book ended at exactly the right moment in Trey and Tai's relationship, and I look forward eagerly to learning how it continues to develop in the next book of the series.

[Melanie · Rating 2 out of 5]

There was really nothing bad about this book, but there wasn't anything new, either. I feel like I've read this book about five times: Plucky girl with unusual job and odd name gets a tiny bit involved in murder case and instead of staying away like a sensible person, feels a compulsion to solve the case. It just felt kind of stale.

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Way too many characters. The book definitely needed some more editing as it was a little spastic in the storyline and sentences were legitimately missing words/thoughts. The storyline was intriguing though.

[Fran Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love it.

[Janet Cross · Rating 2 out of 5]

Girl inherits guns shop in Atlanta. Helps to solve murder of another girl in driveway of her brother. Falls for guys with no emotions. Typical.

[Fran · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best Book I have ever read.

[Sara Barrios · Rating 2 out of 5]

I thought the story was pretty boring. She has a lot of characters but doesn't develop them well. I did not feel a connection with any of the main characters. I was just ready for the book to end.

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Robert Mckay · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would like to give this book 4.5 stars, or perhaps even 4.75, but there's no way to do it. I don't give it five because it has all the flaws of the first book of a series - but I give it four, and would give it more if I could, because it's better than a lot of first books in a series.

I have two main complaints. One is the resolution of the story. As I've said in other reviews, I don't read a mystery for the puzzle - I don't try to figure out who did it. But I want things to make some sense without the author having to resort to a long wrapup, which is frequently nothing but confusion - and that's exactly what happened here. I was thoroughly confused, until the wrap-up, when I became extremely confused. As best as I could make out when the book ended, someone killed a woman because she was a lesbian, but I don't think that's actually the case...though the victim was, in fact, a lesbian, and someone did, in fact, kill her.

My other complaint is the character of Tai Randolph. She's the new owner of a gun store - or part-owner, anyway, since her brother also inherited it from their uncle - but she seems unfamiliar with firearms and at best uninterested in them, and when she expresses any opinion at all about the "Confederate flag" (there's no indication which flag, but no doubt it's the battle flag of the Army of Northern Virginia, which was never the flag of the entire Confederacy) her uncle had on the wall, it's a negative one. I am mortally tired of vast ignorance regarding the Confederate States of America, and I am becoming more than irritated at the completely untrue propaganda that's rampant in the country. Tai is supposedly a southerner, and while there's as much variety of experience and opinion in the south as there is in the north, I want a southern character to act and talk and think and feel and be southern. Tai Randolph isn't; in this book anyway she's indistinguishable from Spenser up in Boston, or Kinsey Millhone in California, or Walt Longmire in Wyoming, or even John Rebus in Edinburgh.

Still, this is a first book, and so I make allowances. I've read more than one series where it took two or three books to really get into gear, so I'm not going to chuck this series because of the first book. But I do hope for better in the succeeding installments.

[Ken Finlay · Rating 3 out of 5]

"The Dangerous Edge of Things" is a solid start to the Tia Randolph Mystery series.
Tia has just inherited a gun shop but that has really got very little to do with the story.
Instead, while visiting her brother's home in Atlanta, she finds a murdered woman in a car near his house.
And, that's where it gets convoluted and complicated, overly so. I never did fully get to grips with the ins and outs of the main plot (even when it is explained at the end).
But what lifts the book is the relationship between her and her 'bodyguard', Trey Seaver.
He's a former cop with a life-changing brain injury. He's rebuilt a life of sorts but is, in some ways, barely functional. He knows he's not the man he once was but change, for him, is difficult - he's trying but any progress is very slow.
Tia, on the other hand, is a free spirit, a disappointment to her overachieving brother Eric. But where others see a robot, bound by routine, she senses that there is more to Trey than meets the eye.
And there is, he can tell when people are lying.
When she finds his copy of GQ magazine a lot of pieces drop into place - he hasn't created a new life for himself, he's borrowed it from the issue.
He's got the skills and she's got the smarts (it is not quite as simple as that), together they are more than the sum of their parts.
3.5 Stars.

[Sharon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great start to a promising series!
The mystery was complex, and I got a little lost trying to follow the fast-paced plot. Although the story was told in first person, I got a little annoyed that the protagonist didn't share all her reveals with the reader. The ending tied everything up nicely, however.
What I liked most was the fresh, creative prose; spot-on descriptions of the Atlanta setting; and the chemistry between Tai Randolph and Trey Seaver. Both are well-developed characters who will be able to keep a reader's interest throughout multiple books.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This started out a murder mystery but ended up a romance.

Tai Randolph has just relocated to Atlanta when she discovers a dead body outside her brothers place. This makes her a person of interest with the police but also with an entity called Phoenix.

Phoenix is tied to her brother, who is conveniently out of town and unable to return to clear up his association with the dead woman. Phoenix is into a lot of things, including security and appears to be politically connected.

Unfortunately, I do not enjoy this type of set up, despite the professional writing and clever plot.

Fortunately, I borrowed a copy from the public library.

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a different mystery. The mystery was good, but the relationship between the two main characters, one with a traumatic brain injury, and one without, was the most compelling part of the story to me. How do you relate to a partner who is so black and white when looking at motives and trying to understand why people do things? It really made the story much more interesting to me. I am excited to get more into this series!

[Lynn · Rating 2 out of 5]

While this book started out well, and ended well, it was hard to get through most of the middle of the book. I appreciated the short chapters, but I felt like there was a lot of unnecessary description that caused me to get lost in spots. I don't think this was a horrible book as all author's put their time and energy into their stories and I appreciate them for doing so. I am not opposed to reading another story by this author.

[Genie McFate · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite series is Tai Randolph and Trey Seaver. While each story features a different mystery, the characters grow and change. So if you are looking for a new series to enjoy, I highly recommend this one :).

[Lynn Hesse · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had to work on suspending reality because the amateur sleuth's/protagonist's motivation for continuing the investigation was shaky compared to the imminent threat of the killer targeting her. I do like tough women characters.

[Pianogirl1126 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book. They compared it to Stephanie Plum - there is not humor in this book so I wouldn't compare Tia to Stephanie but it is still a whodunit mystery. It was a great series.