Danger Permeates Linda Hurtado Bond’s ‘All the Broken Girls’ [REVIEW]

She’s a journalist whose career is on the ropes. He’s a homicide detective with a prep school education and little tolerance for unsubstantiated ideas. Can they learn to work together to stop a killer dead in his tracks, or will her past come back to haunt them both and put her out of a job once and for all? Find out in Linda Hurtado Bond’s All the Broken Girls.

Television crime reporter Marisol Alvarez needs a break. Having just returned from an unpaid two-week suspension after basically killing a city council member’s career, she’s still in the doghouse. Her boss has her cooling her heels covering fluff pieces like the birth of a new baby sloth at Busch Gardens, and he’s made it clear that under no circumstances is she to return to her usual beat.

Even when she tries to be obedient, fate has other idea. Just as she and her cameraman set out to cover sloth baby, they hear about a major crime in her very own neighborhood. After getting permission to go shoot B roll footage on the scene, Mari discovers that a woman has been brutally murdered.

Then Mari sees the victim’s two daughters arrive to witness the horror of it all, and she is compelled to help. For 10 years ago, Mari lost her own mother to similar circumstances. But when beefy Detective Antonio Garcia intervenes and prevents her from comforting the girls, Mari wonders just whose side he’s on.

The next day, there is another murder, and each crime feels connected, despite there being no DNA left behind by the killer. What are left behind, however, are two dolls, one missing an eye and another a heart. Are these actually clues to the crimes or messages for Mari? Only she can put the pieces of the puzzle together. But the clock is ticking. Can she crack the case before another victim is found and her career goes up in smoke?

In All the Broken Girls, Emmy® Award-winning journalist Linda Hurtado Bond (Flatline) writes what she knows and delivers a story that is personal, timely, and above all, utterly nerve wracking. She pulls back the curtain to reveal just how cutthroat television news can be. This is an arena where seasoned journalists can lose their credibility overnight and ambitious climbers eagerly await opportunities to push their way into the spotlight.

The murder mystery is both fascinating and complex, and yet the most riveting aspect of the novel for me (having worked in newsrooms myself over the years) is the candid way Bond writes about Mari’s career and how she navigates the people she works with. In many ways she makes working in the media feel like a diver swimming through shark infested territory after there is already blood in the water. It’s an environment where competition can trump camaraderie, and shrewd journalists must always watch their backs.

There is a reason many of my favorite storytellers are former journalists. They know how to write a compelling, multilayered story that keeps us on the edge of our seats. Bond is no different. Whether she’s reporting the news or weaving masterful fiction guaranteed to keep us holding our breath, she proves that she is a force to be reckoned with. All the Broken Girls is as vibrant and alluring as a Tampa sunset. Readers won’t be able to tear their eyes away from this surefire hit!