Review: One Bad Deed (Detective Sheridan Holler Book 5) by T.M. Payne

                                                                   

Print Length: 394 pages

Publisher: Thomas & Mercer (July 21, 2026)

From Goodreads.com:  One night. Two cases. Three deadly secrets.

Dennis Canning has been murdered. Decades ago, he destroyed an entire family—has someone now taken revenge? DI Sheridan Holler believes so, but everyone has an alibi.

Then a brutal attack leaves a colleague fighting for her life in hospital. The investigation points to one suspect, but Sheridan can't prove it. Time is running out, and the evidence she needs is just out of reach.

Desperate and haunted by the ticking clock on both cases, Sheridan crosses a line she never thought she would. She turns to someone she shouldn't trust—someone who can help her get the proof she needs, no matter the cost to her conscience or even her career.

As the cases intertwine and dark secrets surface, Sheridan discovers that some alibis are too perfect—and some crimes are decades in the making. But when you break the rules, the consequences might destroy you.

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My Rating: 3 stars out of 5

I really wish more authors would realize that sometimes less is more. It feels like so many get so fixated on cramming their books full of "twists and turns" that they lose sight of the fact that too many twists eventually stop being surprising and simply become exhausting. And that's a real shame when the premise is as promising as this one was.

Now, don't get me wrong, I understand wanting to keep readers guessing. In fact, some of the twists genuinely worked and helped keep the story engaging. The problem was that there came a point where every new revelation seemed destined to be overturned by another revelation a chapter later. Details were constantly being introduced, reworked, and repackaged in an attempt to shock the reader, and after a while it started feeling less like clever plotting and more like the story was spinning its wheels. Add in a few characters who seemed to operate completely outside the bounds of what would realistically be possible, and it required a level of suspension of disbelief that I struggled to maintain.

The epilogue also left me feeling a bit conflicted. On the one hand, I appreciated that it tied up every loose thread and left virtually no unanswered questions about the characters or the investigation. On the other hand, it didn't really feel like part of the story itself. Instead, it reminded me of the ending of a true crime documentary where the screen starts listing what happened after the case concluded: this person confessed and received this sentence, these people remained in contact, this piece of evidence was never recovered, and so on. It wasn't necessarily a bad way to end the book, just an unexpected one that felt somewhat disconnected from everything that came before it. 

One thing I did appreciate, however, was how easy it was to slip right into reading this book. Even though this is the fifth installment, I never felt lost or confused about who anyone was. I do think a little more physical description of Sheridan and the rest of her team would have helped me picture them better, but I never struggled to understand the relationships between the characters. In fact, one of my favorite aspects of the book was seeing how close-knit the team had become. Their interactions felt much more like a family than a group of coworkers, and I imagine that bond is even more rewarding for readers who have followed them from the beginning.

That said, this series is available through Kindle Unlimited, and I've already gone back and requested the first book. While this one didn't completely win me over, I don't think it's enough for me to decide one way or the other about the author. I'd like to see how the series began before deciding whether I'll continue reading more of their work.

DISCLAIMER: I received a complimentary copy of this novel from the publisher. This has not affected my review in any way. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are 100% my own.