Rated 3.5 of 5 stars
Sparks gives readers a glimpse into the underworld of human trafficking in his novel, Made Safe. We follow a cast of characters that are flawed and courageous as they fight to first understand what crime is being committed, then stop the heinous act from happening. All the while, the larger implications of such a scandal does not escape the reader. Human trafficking is happening everywhere, even in Des Moines, Iowa. We start the story with Moses Winter, a private investigator, helping to catch a cheating husband in the act. Little does Winter know, the angered wife has more up her sleeve when she finds her husband bedding down a Bosnian immigrant. Sharon, the wife, pulls a gun, threatens the lives of both adulterers and then in a scuffle to maintain control, her husband, Fred is subsequently stabbed. When the cops come, Rakic is introduced to the story, as he is the agent in charge of homicide. Ironically, when he steps in the room and notices his scantily clad cousin (the mistress) in the corner…he tries to quiet the case in order to ensure she isn’t imprisoned for attempted murder of Fred. Rakic soon realizes there are three stories, not including the truth with what happened in the room.
Rakic wants the case to go away so he can protect his cousin. Moses is a curious guy that feels something is going on that he missed with the husband. So Rakic tries to distance himself from the case while Moses dives deeper in and finds that what’s going on is actually far worse than he anticipated or was prepared for. The readers are taken on car chases, stake outs, spying, foot chases, break ins and lots of falling in the snow/smoking cigarettes and other small redundancies.
I enjoyed the story up until the very end. Throughout the story, I felt there were many different storylines and liked how they tied in together later in the story. Unfortunately, the ending was a bit far fetched in certain scenes and I rolled my eyes a time or two when people would escape pretty dismal endings. Moses Winter is a likeable main character but as smart as he was in his fact finding, he was equally as dumb about Majka and using her for answers. It grated my nerves that he would sleep with someone then not grill them on a case he is totally invested in. That didn’t translate to good sense in my opinion. Also, I thought throwing Claudia in was a bit rushed and forced.
Another thing, could just be me since I’m not a smoker but…there was a hell of a lot of references to smoking in this novel. I despise smoking so it just made me grimace each time it was brought up and unfortunately, that was very often. That’s a personal preference though. I’ve read some books that use smoking and don’t explain it in much detail and I much prefer that method. Other than that, I really liked Sejla and the Wildcat and wished that we’d felt more of their personality in the story so that when it came to the end, we as readers, could really feel triumphant for them. Majka was very well written. I knew her as a character by the end and could understand the kerfuffle she was in coming from another country and wanting to be successful, albeit in the wrong area. Overall, I enjoyed the story and give it a strong 3.5 because it is fast paced, action packed and a solid detective story.
Raging Book Reviews Recommended
*This book ARC was sent by the author for an honest review and releases on January 17th!
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Francis Sparks
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