Welcome to my stop on K.C. Maher’s The Best Of Crimes blog tour with RedDoor Publishing!

(Review written 26/04/19)

I have just finished The Best Of Crimes this afternoon and I’m sure I’ll struggle to find the right words to do this book the justice it deserves. It’s a difficult one to review, but certainly one I recommend.

This story is quite beautifully written. I was completely captivated, but it will undoubtedly be controversial given the nature of the storyline.

Walter quite simply becomes besotted with his daughter’s friend, Amanda, and they share a very close relationship when she is only thirteen years old. Amanda is left alone for long periods of time by her neglectful mother which leads to Walter’s need to take care of her. His wife and daughter have moved away, so it’s just the two of them in their quiet little street. Amanda wholeheartedly shares Walter’s affections, but he is careful not to cross lines. There are many rules as Walter is aware that his love for Amanda will not be tolerated by the world. He knows it’s wrong and he’s petrified of the strength of his feelings. He doesn’t come across as one who is naturally attracted to minors and is actually quite a likeable character in many ways, considering. As a mother though, alarm bells would be ringing if a man was paying my daughter that much attention, especially one who actually tried to explain to me how he was feeling about her, so Amanda’s mother is a complete mystery to me! How a mother can be so uninterested in their own child is beyond me.

I also found Sterling to be an odd character. Swanning off with another bloke for months then coming home and expecting them to carry on as if she’d never been away. I’m sure Walter would be unlikely to welcome her home with open arms under normal circumstances. She also seems to be aware of Walter’s relationship with Amanda and does nothing to intervene, too immersed in her own selfish needs. I find it quite odd how both of these women turn a blind eye to the situation. They could have nipped the whole thing in the bud quite early on, but that wouldn’t make for such an intriguing story would it.

Although naturally unsettling this book is truly compelling.

Many thanks to Anna & Julia at RedDoor Publishing for my review copy.

Via AmazonUK…..

Amanda laughs and stands. Hair sweeps across her forehead and she extends her arms toward me. If she hasn’t been acting beyond her years, she certainly is now.

‘Shall we pretend our front yards are an ocean, Walter? Shall we reach for each other across half the world?’

Walter, a child prodigy who now works on Wall Street, considers himself a father figure to Amanda, his daughter’s best friend and only child of a neglectful single mother. But when he loses his job after the 2008 financial crisis and his materialistic wife leaves him, taking their daughter, his relationship with Amanda enters a precarious new stage.

Walter struggles to give her the affection and guidance she needs, without succumbing to her budding sexuality. In the year before she enters high school, these two lonely souls will transform each other as Walter breaks out of his emotional shell, and Amanda blossoms into adolescence.

In a world that has always failed to protect its most vulnerable, The Best of Crimes is a new narrative and an unconventional love story that will challenge your perception of right and wrong.

About the author…..

K.C. Maher grew up outside of Chicago and has been writing fiction all her adult life. Her writing has appeared in little magazines online and off. Mostly, though, her career has been a series of near misses. Now that her children are grown, she writes more than she sleeps. Only recently has she noticed that her imagination runs to, and cultivates, the exception to the rule. Her husband, however, has always known this, as have lawyers considering her for jury duty.

K.C. Maher on Twitter: https://twitter.com/kcmaher3
K.C. Maher’s website: http://www.kcmaherfiction.com