“If my kids had been with me, it wouldn’t have happened.”

From Heather Chavez’s No Bad Deed.

After a long day at work, Cassie is traveling the last few miles of the lonely back road on her way home to her kids and husband, Sam; however, when she witnesses a man attacking a woman on the side of the road, she instinctively jumps out to help the woman.  Right before the violent man escapes the police with her car and purse, he leaves her with a simple threat, “Let her die, and I’ll let you live.”  As Brooklyn, the victim, lies defenseless on the ground, Cassie works to stop the bleeding until help arrives, and Cassie finds herself at the beginning of a terrible nightmare.  The Detective assigned to the case informs Cassie that the man she stopped from killing Brooklyn was Carver Sweet, a man who killed his wife earlier that day.  While Cassie struggles to cope with the craziness of life and the night before, Sam disappears and his vague apology text pushes Cassie into a downward spiral.  As she’s left wondering if Sam left on his own or was taken, Cassie also begins to find hints of malice around her home and job.  While looking into Sam’s disappearance, Cassie learns how much she doesn’t know about the husband she’s drifted away from in recent years.  It quickly becomes evident that Sam is having an affair, but Cassie is unable to shake the feeling that the timing of Sam disappearing and Carver’s threat can’t be a coincidence.  While it breaks her heart to try to figure out what’s going on in Sam’s life, Cassie pushes forward, but the deeper she investigates, the more she realizes that the attack she stopped may be less random that she thought.

This book is filled with thrilling moments and a constantly-moving story.  Chavez’s debut novel is captivatingly well-written, drawing the reader into a story that continues developing from start to finish.  With a surprising twist and the details to back it up, No Bad Deed is a must-read for thriller fans everywhere.