Note: Thank you to BookSirens, Jubilee Publishing, and author Bruce Hammack for the advanced reader copy of this book. This review will also be posted on BookSirens. What follows is my unbiased review of the book.

I agreed to read and review A Killer on Christmas Cay knowing it was the twelfth book in a series. Many times when a series is that far along, it’s hard to join it. I can say that I don’t think I had a problem with getting up to speed with the recurring characters. Author Bruce Hammack has created a tale that’s very accessible to the reader, even if they haven’t read prior books in the series. The question is if you want to.

Steve Smiley is a former police officer turned private investigator. While that may not sound all that unusual, he’s also blind and possesses a talent known as chromesthesia. Even though he is blind (or perhaps because of it) this allows him to immediately know if a crime scene was murder or something else. While he was on the force Steve befriended Heather McBlythe. At one time she was a lawyer, then entered law enforcement, and now she’s some sort of billionaire investor/developer just like her father.

It’s her father, Alister McBlythe, who hires Heather and Steve to solve a mystery at his company. Someone is selling corporate secrets and he’s not sure who it could be. While Heather and Steve plot how to expose the corporate spy, one of the department heads at Alister’s company is assaulted in the parking garage. Is it just a mugging gone wrong? Or is it somehow connected to the thefts?

The plan they came up with was to start a rumor that the two companies would merge and to send all of the department heads to a Caribbean island for a bonding retreat with Heather’s staff. The idea is to add to the stress of wondering if they will keep their jobs with physical and mental activities to break them, resulting in the thief being exposed.

I had a hard time getting into the book. That might be due to the fact I hadn’t read the earlier ones, but I also felt like the characters and setting were unreal. I could believe Heather as a lawyer. I could believe Heather might have decided to enter law enforcement due to her experience as a lawyer. But then, she’s self-made with her own jet and billion-dollar corporation, all by the time she’s in her mid-30s. Once they decide on a strategy for getting the employees to talk, they are able to find a private island with a home for rent, staff it, and have everything come together perfectly in less than a week.

There were some good moments of levity, such as the personal trainer who gets so sea sick that he curls up in a fetal position on the boat. Much was made of one of Heather’s employees and his issues with body odor. I didn’t think it was as much funny as sad, and her employees felt it was okay to bully him, even though he is a crack lawyer.

The mystery was decent, although I figured out part of it pretty early on. It came together well, if a bit contrived. I look at books like this and I think if you’re reading the series all along you’ll enjoy this one. However, this does not make me want to go back and read the books before it as other series have done that I picked up in the middle (such as The Maine Game Warden series or the Wrexford & Sloane series). It’s a decent book, just not my style.