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    Blood on the Tracks
    Blood on the Tracks
    Blood on the Tracks
    Audiobook12 hours

    Blood on the Tracks

    Written by Barbara Nickless

    Narrated by Emily Sutton-Smith

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    An Amazon Charts bestseller.

    A young woman is found brutally murdered, and the main suspect is the victim’s fiancé, a hideously scarred Iraq War vet known as the Burned Man. But railroad police Special Agent Sydney Rose Parnell, brought in by the Denver Major Crimes unit to help investigate, can't shake the feeling that larger forces are behind this apparent crime of passion.

    In the depths of an icy winter, Parnell and her K9 partner, Clyde—both haunted by their time in Iraq—descend into the underground world of a savage gang of rail riders. There, they uncover a wide-reaching conspiracy and a series of shocking crimes. Crimes that threaten everything Parnell holds dear.

    As the search for the truth puts her directly in the path of the killer, Parnell must struggle with a deadly question: Can she fight monsters without becoming one herself?

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Release dateOct 1, 2016
    ISBN9781522640059
    Blood on the Tracks
    Author

    Barbara Nickless

    Barbara Nickless is the Wall Street Journal and #1 Amazon Charts bestselling author of the Sydney Rose Parnell series, which includes Blood on the Tracks, a Suspense Magazine Best of 2016 selection and winner of the Daphne du Maurier Award for Excellence; Dead Stop; and Ambush. Blood on the Tracks and Dead Stop won the Colorado Book Award, and Dead Stop was nominated for the Daphne du Maurier Award for Excellence. Her essays and short stories have appeared in Writer’s Digest and Criminal Element, among other markets. She lives in Colorado, where she loves to cave, snowshoe, hike, and drink single malt Scotch—usually not at the same time. Connect with her at www.barbaranickless.com.

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    Reviews for Blood on the Tracks

    4/5

    108 ratings7 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Sydney Rose is a flawed heroine. The literal ghosts of her past service in Iraq in Mortuary Affairs haunt her. Blood on the Tracks is a page-turner, as a seemingly open and closed murder case sprouts new developments. I found myself rooting for her to solve the case and heal her wounds. This is obviously going to be a series, and there were loose ends left that I assume will be tied up in the next novel. There is a lot of rough language, which fits the story and the characters, but be warned if you find f-bombs objectionable.
    • 5/5
      If there's one thing this hard-hitting, compelling mystery brought home to me once more, it's the fact that we ask too much of our two- and four-legged soldiers. We always have, and we have always given them too little in return. I recently came across a list of seven mysteries featuring working dogs. Since I'd read four of the books and liked and/or loved them, I thought I'd get my hands on the other three. Blood on the Tracks is the first of the three I've read. I liked the sound of it because I had yet to read a book about a railroad detective. I suppose I thought hobos and all that had gone out with the Depression back in the 1930s. (Sometimes my thought processes need a good dusting.)Even though I did roll my eyes a little at a few things in the book (the best time to track a killer out in the middle of nowhere is during the Storm of the Century; whodunit was a bit easy to piece together; and why does a female character have to have a love interest?), I was still blown away by this fast-paced, visceral story, and that has almost everything to do with the main character.I immediately fell under the spell of Sydney Rose Parnell's voice. She may have inherited her fiancé's dog, and she may think "something was broken inside of Clyde," but she is the one who is truly broken. Each chapter begins with an excerpt from her private journals or college classwork, and these passages hammer home the damage her time in Iraq has done. Parnell was part of a team none of us want to think much about: Mortuary Affairs. As a member of that team, it was her responsibility to find every bit of a deceased soldier that she could in order to piece the body back together. If a part could not be found, it had to be "shaded out" on the proper form. Each time Parnell touches her heart with her hand and makes a dead soldier whole in her mind, it's a mind punch for the reader, and Parnell's world is brought into sharper focus.Parnell's K-9 partner, Clyde, doesn't have quite as much to do in this book as working dogs have in similar books I've read, but I think his contribution will grow (and what he does do is choice). There are some unanswered questions about Iraq that should come to light in the next book in the series, and I'm looking forward to reading Dead Stop. I want to learn more railroad and hobo lore, and I definitely want to learn more about Sydney Rose Parnell. She's the type of character to get under a reader's skin and refuse to leave. I like that.
    • 5/5
      I received a free advance e-copy of this book and have chosen to write an honest and unbiased review. I have no personal affiliation with the author. Wow! What a book. I love Sydney and her dog, Clyde. An Iraq veteran with PTSD is finding civilian life very challenging. She sees dead people and has skeletons from her time in Iraq that she dares not reveal to anyone. This is a real roller coaster ride, an edge of your seat thriller. So much hate, a brutal murder, some really bad dudes, betrayal, a cover-up, loyalty to family at any price. Full of suspense with twists and turns. The action never quits. Couldn’t put it down. A very emotional read. Well written with an amazing plot and good character development. This book is well worth the read and I look forward to reading more about Sydney and Clyde in the future.
    • 4/5
      I liked this book. It might not be perfect but it sure is a good read.Sydney Rose Parnell has come back to Denver from Iraq with a heavy load of emotional trauma and a similarly traumatized K9 companion. In their human and animal way they deal with PTSD and Clyde's shrapnel wounds. Clyde has come to Sydney because he cannot recover from the loss of his handler, Doug Ayers. Neither can Sydney. Following family tradition, Sydney has taken a job with the railroad. She and Clyde are Railroad Police, a branch of work few of us know. They work for the railroad and investigate crimes occurring on railroad property. Denver police call on Sydney and Clyde to help with a murder investigation that seems linked to the railroad and to Iraq. A soldier wounded in Iraq is suspected of brutally murdering Elise Hensley, niece of Railroad Police Senior Special Agent Nik Lasko and his wife Ellen Ann who are Sydney's surrogate family in Denver. Sydney works with Denver homicide detective Mike Cohen and her special knowledge of the railway and hobos enriches the book greatly.The imperfections of the book first are the unnecessary epigraphs (all epigraphs are unnecessary) and a strange sentence linking "white line fever" with railroading. As far as I can see, white line fever is a linked to highway driving. Ignore these and read on. The ending is improbable but that doesn't matter because the story is so good.I received a review copy of "Blood on the Tracks: Sydney Rose Parnell Series, Book 1" by Barbara Nickless (Thomas & Mercer) through NetGalley.com.
    • 5/5
      A complex book dealing with crime and retribution which doesn't immediately grab your attention but repays patience. Sydney Rose Parnell is an ex-Marine currently working for a Denver railroad company as a policeman who becomes involved in the horrific murder of a colleague's relative and ends up on a private mission to find the murderer after police identify a prime suspect, another ex-Marine, whom she believes is innocent. Not for the sqeamish but well-written and the violence isn't gratuitous and fully within context.
    • 4/5
      This is a great start to a unique crime series. Sydney is a war-broken heroine, working as a railroad cop out where "hobos" ride the rails on a regular basis. The homicide case takes us through war memories and the railroad camps, letting us get to know Sydney along the way.I enjoyed the railroad angle, as it takes us into a subculture rarely seen or talked about in our modern days. We see what it's like for these people who are homeless and rootless, some by choice and others by chance.The author does an excellent job of exposing atrocities of war, without ever being preachy. She lays the facts bare, letting us see the long-term effects of actions and consequences. Sydney is a strong lead character. While she struggles with PTSD and the edge of addiction, she is far more resilient than she gives herself credit for. And I love her relationship with her police dog! This aspect, for me, really makes the story shine. The plot tends to move a little slowly throughout the first half of the book. I would have preferred a little less wallowing at times. Still, the writing is engaging and the story held my interest. The second half of the book keeps us teetering, with some great twists to knock us off balance. While the book does have a firm ending, a couple of threads are left dangling for us to pull on in the next book.
    • 2/5
      This book was fine for what it was, it just wasn't the murder mystery I was expecting. Yes, there was a murder and yes, solving it was part of the story but this is a WAR novel and very much about the experience of soldiers in combat. Very integral to the plot and very important to the characters involved and leading into subsequent books in the series but much more a war/combat novel than a mystery novel. I finished the book and saw promise in the characters but really don't want to read about war/combat and will pass on the rest of the series.