In Harm's Way

Walt Fleming, Book 4

By: Ridley Pearson

Narrated by: Christopher Lane

Length: 10 hrs and 57 mins

Publisher's summary

Sun Valley sheriff Walt Fleming’s budding relationship with local photographer Fiona Kenshaw hits a rough patch after she is responsible for a heroic river rescue yet attempts to avoid the press. Despite her laudable actions, she begs Walt to help keep her photo out of the local paper. Confused by her protests, Walt thinks she’s just being modest about her heroism.

While Sun Valley is known as a billionaire’s playground, Walt’s job still keeps him grounded firmly in reality. One day he’s rubbing elbows with political royalty; the next he’s stepping over spilled jam jars while investigating the vandalism of a local home by a brown bear, and trying to find sitters for his twin daughters. He’s dodging Fiona, chasing down criminals, and attending charity fund-raisers, feeling like he’s leading a double life.

It’s at one charity benefit that a young woman he once rescued is convinced she has seen a ghost: her former captor, a man Walt watched die. Then Walt gets a phone call that changes everything: Lou Boldt, a legendary homicide sergeant out of Seattle, reports that a recent murder in his city may have a high-profile Sun Valley connection. Their shared search for information is soon complicated by the discovery of a body at the side of the valley’s busiest road, not far from where the spooked young woman lives. A young woman who happens to be under the watchful care of Fiona.

Walt and Boldt sense a connection — but are some cases better left in the cold-case file? Can Walt turn away from what seems an impossible truth? Can Boldt trick the suspect out into the open? Walt and Boldt begin to fit together the pieces of a terrifying puzzle — in the process putting themselves and everyone around them in harm’s way.

©2010 Ridley Pearson (P)2010 Brilliance Audio, Inc.

Inconsistency of Moral Values

The Sheriff spent a great deal of time analyzing his behavior and judging others by his values. However he was unable to follow them himself. The ending felt like the author was stuck and threw in something that had no connection to the rest of the story. The performance was one of the best I have listened to.

Pearson Doesn't Disappoint

In Harm's Way, the latest Sheriff Walt Fleming offering from Ridley Pearson, does not disappoint, whether you have followed the previous books or are new to the series. Sheriff Fleming again is on the trail of bad people in Sun Valley while he tries to balance being the single father of twin girls with an emerging love life. A few details may stretch the reader's credulity a bit (we are to believe that the heroine, trained in the use of handguns, ventures out into the night after leaving her handgun in her cottage? I would have had it duct-taped to my wrist....) but the story moves along swimmingly. Especially good is the description of the relationship between Fleming and his wonder dog Beatrice, who proves her worth over and over again. An added bonus is the appearance in Sun Valley of Pearson's longtime detective hero, Seattle-based Lou Boldt. The interplay between the big city Boldt and the small town Fleming, whose father routinely chides him for all those calls about bears, is worth the price of admission alone.

Great Story

Pearson's description of the woods, the fields, and the trees put me right there in the middle of the story. The fact that Lou Bolt played a major part in the story made it that much better.

The reader must be from Maine as half the characters sounded like they were from the Northeast instead of the Northwest. I found that to be annoying.