This is an efficient and gripping thriller, and what it lacks in originality it makes up for in page turning fun. Bounty Hunter heroine Lori, is pretty kick ass and the relationship between her and her daughter works well. Broadribb throws in lots of convincing detail about the job, which is always fun. Overall an entertaining read that reminded me a little of Lee Child. ( )

Deep Down Dead is one of those books that I saw a lot of excitement about on social media so I just had to pick up a copy for myself to see what all the fuss was about. OMG!! This book is simply brilliant. I couldn't put it down and read it at such speed that I could feel my eyes zipping down the page before my brain had even got there. If there was a book race, Steph Broadribb would win it - I bet this is a book that a lot of people would read in one sitting (I almost did).

Lori Anderson is a bounty hunter but she's had such a tough life that led her to this vocation. I'll not go into it here as her back-story is a pivotal part of the story but Lori was trained by JT who she now has to track and bring in to jail. With no sitter for her poorly 9 year old daughter, Dakota, Lori reluctantly has to take Dakota with her; the commission is just too good to refuse for what she sees as an easy pick up...but that's where she's wrong. Boy, does she earn her fee.

I loved every single character in this book, even the mean ones. They are so 3 dimensional that I felt as if they popped out of the pages like Princess Leia's holographic message stored in R2-D2's memory banks. Lori, Dakota and JT go on such a journey that many times my eyes widened in surprise and I gasped in shock, yet I continued to race on through the book like my very life depended on it.

Clear your decks, you will do nothing but read this book once you pick it up. It really deserves something more than 5 stars to make it stand out from the rest, but you'll just have to take my word for it. Believe me, you will not regret buying this book. This is another one of those books that I should have reviewed in fewer words so you don't delay picking up a copy for yourself. Deep Down Dead: you MUST read it, it's abso-flipping-lutely brilliant. ( )

At first glance this book may seem like it is just going to be an action packed, chase thriller but once you start reading you quickly realise it is going to go so much deeper than that. It is a book that has so many levels it is difficult to know where to begin the review.

So, I will start with the glaringly obvious, the action. Quite simple it is written so perfectly, the instant I started reading I had a movie playing out in my head. I am not always one for reading 'action' but this novel had me engaged from the very first line and kept me so for several reasons.

The first reason : the protagonist. I think Lori Anderson has become one of my most favourite protagonists. She is stunningly brilliant. Tough with a capital 'T' - a female bounty hunter and a single mother - she has to be. Even changing her name to leave behind the women she once was, to be the women she has become. Of course, you can never fully leave behind who you are and Steph Broadribb has woven her history and her fragile side in so carefully and seamlessly you are left with a beautifully developed, complex and truly likable character who you can't help but fall in love with and deeply root for.

Broadribb has continued her brilliance in character development with the rest of the cast, particularly those who mean something to Lori, her daughter Dakota and her old mentor / ex lover JT. The author presents the relationships between the three with such realism and sensitivity you find yourself wanting to know more about the 'normal' mother / daughter life Lori is desperately trying to make for them and likewise you yearn to be given as much information as possible about the, very deep and complicated, history between Lori and JT.

Along with all the action and the softer relationship side of the story you then get the mystery. Our protagonist goes to do a simple 'pick up' job and winds up in a web of horror. Just as it seems she makes a huge discovery and you think she might have untangled herself from the spiders web, you realise she has actually only taken herself further in.

Although the book is over three hundred pages long it is only the tip of the iceberg of this women's story and I can not wait for Deep Blue Trouble, book number two in the Lori Anderson series, to be realised so I can absorbed myself back into the troubled, but exciting world of Ms Anderson. ( )

Deep Down Dead – A Breathless Debut

Deep Down Dead is the lip smacking rollercoaster ride thriller debut from Steph Broadribb, that is really dark and really brilliant. All I can say she must have one helluva twisted and dark mind, and I love it! What will really get you about this debut is how fast and confident Steph Broadribb is with her writing and her characterisation and has created a character that is kick ass and female.

Lori Anderson is a single mother to a nine-year-old daughter, Dakota, who suffers from leukaemia, while at the same time being a fearless Florida bounty hunter. She usually does not move out of state, and never takes her daughter along while she is chasing the fugitives of Florida, but with bills mounting up she agrees to do an easy pick-up in West Virginia. What she does not tell her Bail Bonds employers that she must take Dakota along with her.

To complicate matters the person she is being sent was her mentor when she began her career as a bounty hunter, and we learn the full back story that helped to colour Lori Anderson’s life and decisions. When she gets to West Virginia things do not work out as planned, when she realises that her pick up is going to be anything but easy.

As the thriller develops we learn that JT her mentor has a mafia bounty on his head and wanted by another ‘business’ man in Florida. Both will do anything to get JT, dead or alive and whatever he is hiding they want that too. Lori and Dakota really do have to roll with the punches, the bullets and their own impending deaths if something goes wrong.

What we get is a fast and furious and dangerous ride back to her base, proving that Lori Anderson really is as tough as any male bounty hunter. She is a character that the reader will grow to love, while at times hating some of the decisions she makes, but from this tough exterior she really has a heart of gold.

If I did not know any better I would say that Deep Down Dead had been written by an experience thriller writer who knew her audience and how to titillate them with bodies falling the right amount of violence. This really is the best debut I have read in a long time and published early in 2017 it could already be the debut of the year, Steph Broadribb is a major talent and will be entertaining us for a long time (I hope). ( )