Deeper Than the Dead by Tami Hoag

Hello Beautiful People! Welcome to another Baddie Book Review! I am trying a different style with this review, one that I think will be a bit easier for myself and the reader! I would love to know what you guys think so please feel free to leave a comment below or reach out on Instagram @baddiebookreviews

Band of Characters:

• Tommy Crane, Wendy Morgan: Two friends who stumble on a body one day after school
• Dennis Farman: Bully to Tommy and Wendy, son of Frank
• Cody Roache: Dennis’s friend kind of
• Frank and Sharon Farman: Husband and wife, parents to Dennis, Frank is a Deputy
• Tony Mendez: Detective
• Cal Dixon: Sheriff
• Jane Thomas: Owns a center for women escaping abusive relationships
• Vince Leone: Profiler with the FBI BAU
• Janet and Peter Crane: Parents to Tommy
• Sara and Steve Morgan: Wendy’s Parents
• Anne Navarre: 5^th grade teacher who is the teacher of the kids

**Some warnings/disclaimers for future readers**

• Contains murder and autopsy scenes
• Contains child abuse
• Contains child-on-child violence

My Review

This was the first Tami Hoag book I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading, and I don’t know how I’ve gone this long never having read anything by her. This book was really enjoyable to read. I rate it a 9/10.

Tami’s ability to create such a vivid story, while also keeping you guessing the whole time is truly impressive. I really loved the character of Anne Navarre. I thought Anne was such a needed character in a book like this. She played the role of the level-headed character whose attention is likely on others and not herself. She would tend to bring people back to earth and remind them what was important here, and that was the wellness of the children. She tends to bring in the opposite perspective as well from most characters. When Dennis gets punished he’s labelled as a bad kid, she sees a troubled boy who is in desperate need of some positive reinforcements and healthy affection. Her attempts to care for others before thinking of herself however does get her in some pretty stupid situations and that did just kind of make me wish she was a bit more of a selfish character.

I also really enjoyed the character of Vince Leone. He, similar to Anne, brings this air of calmness to the apparent chaos that’s going on in the book. Along with this his character brings a touch of romance to the book which I don’t always enjoy in books but was not annoyed by at all in this book. The romance pieces to the book were honestly really nicely added in and didn’t take away at all from the clear horror of the book but were kind of a nicely needed break from it. I speak more on the romance in the summary/comment portion but I was honestly rooting for it the whole time.

I think the part of this book that got to me the most was the clear mental illness in a child that we see often. As kind of a pre-warning and something that I don’t feel spoils this book is that Dennis is clearly a very mentally ill child. His father and mother both have drinking problems, and his father beats him and his mother constantly. It’s clear that Dennis having grown up in this home filled with chaos and unrest has led to him being a mentally disturbed child. In my line of work, I’ve had the opportunity to work with children similar to Dennis and I found myself really feeling for him. While I don’t think the things that happened to him were an excuse to hurt the other children around him, I do definitely understand that a lot of kids out there cannot appropriately regulate and express feelings in a way that other kids can. I found myself being really frustrated with pretty much most of the parents in this book. That was probably Tami’s goal but I was just so pissed that all of them were far more concerned with what was going on with themselves than the children.

My favourite part of the book however was the twist at the ending. I really did not see it coming at all. I had a totally different idea of who the killer would be before it was revealed. I felt like the ending also had a really interesting conclusion. It didn’t feel rushed at all which I liked, and was satisfying to a degree. There was a piece I didn’t love about the ending that kind of seemed unnecessary to me and I got into this in the summary/commentary section. I will also add that I do wish we got more of a look into Mendez and Leone’s lives. We do get a bit of a look into Leone’s but none of Mendez’s. I do have a feeling though that this may come in other books, which I do have and am excited to read.

Summary and Commentary

**Please be aware this section will have spoilers**

The book starts with the perspective of the kids. They’re all at school and it’s clear Dennis picks on Tommy and Wendy. Cody is a wanna-be friend to Dennis who kind of does what he does but the two clearly aren’t close in any way. Dennis and Cody are chasing after Tommy and Wendy after school and the kids stumble upon a body. Anne Navarre the kid’s teacher hears the commotion as it’s not far from the school and comes to the kid’s aid. Anne takes Wendy and Tommy home. We learn Wendy has a very caring and loving mother whereas Tommy’s mother has a very combative personality that’s hard to be around. Next, we get a look at the police station Frank, Mendez, and Dixon all talk about how the case of this current dead body is similar in MO to other bodies that have shown up in other years. Mendez is clearly not as respected as some other officers on the force. He’s young and has a strong education, some of which the old school deputies don’t believe in. Mendez shares that the MO of eyes glued shut, and moth glued shut is what makes them similar, it’s something specific to this killer. Mendez mentioned see no evil, speak no evil and I thought that was interesting. I always kind of wondered what that really meant. I mean in this context is the killer doing this so that these dead women can’t see him or speak about him meaning he is the evil? Or is it the women who are evil?

We get a bit of a look into Anne’s life. She lives with her disabled, ass of a father, who is verbally abusive toward her. Her mother died a few years ago. I wondered a bit what the reason was for this being Anne’s back story. Don’t get me wrong it didn’t bother me but I wasn’t sure what exactly it added to her character if anything it just made me feel a lot of pity for her. So if that was the point… mission accomplished? I do press though that this is the first book in the series so maybe this is more relevant later on. We get more of a look into Tommy and Wendy’s home life as well. It’s clear Tommy’s parent’s relationship is tense due to his mom’s temper. Wendy’s dad isn’t present as he’s away on business which told me that this is probably a common thing for him. We see Dennis’s home life and it’s clear it’s toxic, and no environment for a child to be in.

The next day at school we get an introduction to Fran the kindergarten teacher and Anne’s best friend. I really loved this character because he was a very nice comedic break during the dark parts of the story.  Anne has some training in child psychology so they request she sit in on the interview with the kids and the parents with the police, it also helps that she’s their teacher and was there at the scene as well. The kids don’t provide much info which makes sense I mean they just stumbled on the body. Next, we get an introduction to Jane Thomas. She owns the local shelter for women escaping abusive situations. Jane was away and wasn’t checking her messages while away. She missed a bunch of calls calling her in concern for some woman named Karly. The last message expresses worry that the recent murder victim is her. Jane goes to Karly’s cabin (the shelter provides cabins for the women to rent at cheap prices so they can gain finances) and sees her car isn’t there. Jane finds Karly’s rescue dog Petal outside, looking abandoned. However, Jane knows that she would never do this. Karly was recovering from a very abusive relationship and the rescue dog and been her closest companion. Jane gets emotional because she knows if Petal has been left like this something bad has happened. I don’t know why but this part made me kind of emotional. I work a lot with abuse victims and it just broke my heart that this poor girl finally thought she was safe and then something happened.

Jane goes to the police station to share her concerns with the detectives. Jane insists on seeing the body. Dixon tells her not to but she insists as she wants to be certain if it’s her. When Jane goes to see the body it’s not Karly, but she recognizes her as someone who used to work for her named Lisa. Dixon says to call Quantico. We get an introduction to Vince Leone who is a profiler for the FBI. It’s shared that Vince was shot, but not in the field. Vince was shot by a robber when he was walking to his car at the grocery store. I thought this was really interesting because it told a lot about who Leone was. Not only was he shot but he was shot in the head, a miracle incident to survive from. I thought that this would make him a maybe bitter man, but it actually made him the opposite. It made him more optimistic. Anne goes to check on Cody at his home after school to make sure that he is okay as he was away that day. It made sense that he was but she just wanted to check up on him. We learn that Cody seems to think Dennis knew the body was there for a while and he brought Tommy and Wendy over there to scare them. Cody is clearly very scared of Dennis as he thinks he killed that woman. Obviously, that’s not the case but clearly, Dennis scared him on a different level. This made me sad to think Dennis had clearly seen the body before and was probably visiting it often. That’s something that can really mess a kid up.

Back at the station, we learn that Lisa may have had a married boo but that’s just a rumour they aren’t certain. Vince shows up at the station and it’s clear his presence isn’t totally wanted by all the deputies. Behavioural analysis was fairly new at this time and some people still didn’t believe that you could tell things about a person by looking at the crime. I thought it was interesting that Tami picked this time frame to do this book. I think it fits well into it because it explains why Vince and Mendez are together so often (the young guy who believes in the BAU and the guy from the BAU) going forward in the book. We find out that he also pierces the women’s eardrums so that now it’s hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil. We get a look into Dennis’s home that night and it’s clear he dislikes Anne. She told his parents he was absent from school when they thought he was there and he received a large beating due to it. The thoughts he has about her are violent and disturbing. He then lifts out a severed human finger. One he took from the dead body of the woman. It’s clear to me that Dennis was spending time with that body. It makes me really sad for him because he clearly goes into the woods to escape his home. He ended up finding the body and grew some form of attachment to her.

Mendez and Leone go to Lisa’s apartment and find a photo of her and a man. In the photo she’s looking lovingly to the man so they think he may be the suspect they are looking for. The other woman Julie Paulson who was killed in a similar fashion a few years ago seems to have no connection to the other women, and no connection to the women’s shelter. At the school, Anne notices Dennis is sitting weirdly and suspects he got a beating the night before. Anne tries to talk to him about it and he explodes at her. I really loved the way she responded to him. She responded to him with kindness and understanding as to why he was upset. She did not yell at him or punish him but told him that she was sorry he was hurt because of her telling his parents and that he was safe with her. For the first time, we see a bit of this rough exterior on Dennis shed a little bit. Sadly Anne looks at his note book and it has a drawing of a dead naked woman with knives in her. Not good at all. Back at the station, Vince shares some suspicions he has about Frank. Frank refused to let Dennis be interviewed and has been all around strange with the investigation. We find out that the man in the photo is Steve Morgan Wendy’s Dad. He’s a lawyer who provides pro bono services to clients at the shelter. Jane insists that Steve and Lisa did not have a relationship but I wasn’t too certain about it. Mendez and Leone talk to Steve and he says that he and Lisa are not romantic but the boys get a different vibe. They talk to Peter Crane Tommy’s Dad who is a dentist and had an appointment with Karly before she disappeared. They find nothing weird but feel like she may have been taken from here. Back at the school, Dennis is picking on Tommy and Wendy. Dennis tries to shove something in Wendy’s mouth and it turns out to be the finger. Ugh damn, Dennis… look I feel bad for the kid but that’s just fucked up.

Once the detectives get to the school they find Dennis looking defeated and they take the finger into evidence. While talking to Anne Leone asks her on a date. I thought it was kind of a weird thing to do but hey the man got shot in the head and he sees a cute lady and wants to make a move, fair enough. Anne kind of goes in on Frank and says that Dennis needs help and he’s not doing enough for him, and is making things worse. Frank brushes her off. He tells Mendez and Leone that they found the cars and they need to go. It’s clear that Frank sees that Dennis is a troubled kid, and he’s clearly embarrassed by it. I hate that he just keeps ignoring what’s going on though since he’s all embarrassed. They found the cars of Karly and Lisa at a scrap yard. Gordan Sells owns the yard and seems to have no idea how they ended up there so he is arrested. Anne and Leone have the date and I’ll admit it was a sweet break from the horror of this story. The romance wasn’t nauseating or too much, it was mild and sweet and didn’t take up too much time from the rest of the story.

The next day they find that Sells has been convicted of sexual assault on a child. It turns out that the maintenance man at the shelter has a connection to Sells and they feel it may be a car-stealing ring. I thought this seemed like too much because the idea that he would do this to these women to steal their cars seemed like a lot to me. They also find out that Karly had a ticket issued by Frank on the day they presume she disappeared. This is weird because he never mentioned this when she went missing. We get this look into what Karly is experiencing. She’s now unable to see and trying to find a way out of the room she’s in. This just made me so sad because the fact that he does this to them when they are alive is just so fucked. On the date Leone asked Anne if she could check with Tommy and see if his dad was home the night Karly disappeared. Anne asks him at school the next day and he says he was home, but in his head, he isn’t so sure about this. At the police station, Leone tests Sells. He brings him photos of the dead bodies to see if it does anything for him and it doesn’t. When he brings him child porn he becomes aroused. Leone tells them that Sells can’t be their man because he doesn’t like grown women. Yet he gets told they found bones at Sell’s junkyard making it seem like it still could be him.

Leone goes to talk to Steve who insists he did not kill Lisa and was not sleeping with her. Leone shares they talked to his wife and weren’t so certain about that. Steve says they have nothing on him. Leone goes back to the station and Mendez tells him they found bones on the property. They aren’t certain about who it is but it sure isn’t Karly. The fingerprints come back on the car and it’s only Sells and his nephew which is odd. They start to feel like the bones they found have no connection to the current cases. A lot of the suspicion seems to be around mostly Steve now. Leone goes to the school and asks Anne to show him where the body was. It seemed more like an excuse to see her. When they go to the spot they see Dennis hiding in the woods but he runs off before they can talk to him. Anne is distraught over Dennis and Vince comforts her. I think she’s very much aware something is really wrong with Dennis but her control over the situation is limited and that’s frustrating for her. When Tommy is at home he mentions to his parents what Anne asked him. His parents are very thrown off by this which seemed weird to me. I mean don’t get me wrong it was a weird question but given the circumstances, it’s not that weird that she would ask. Mendez tries to talk to Frank about everything but he’s very confrontational and won’t talk about it. I was definitely a bit suspicious of Frank and given his temper and home life it didn’t seem off that he could be the killer.

There is a candlelight vigil that night for Karly and Janet Tommy’s mom freaks out at Anne for what she asked Tommy. This made me raise a brow at Janet. I mean don’t get me wrong she seems like an odd lady so I am not surprised she was all upset. What was weird was the fact that she laid out on Anne in public in front of Tommy. I mean she just seems to have no ability to control her emotions. Leone steps in to try to help the situation and Anne is upset with him for putting her in this position in the first place. Which I felt was fair. I mean he shouldn’t have asked her to do that. I honestly felt like he did so he would have an excuse to talk to her again if anything. Leone takes her home and tells her about what happened to him. He tells Anne that since he was shot he lives every day like it’s his last and he really likes Anne which is why he’s been so bold with her. The two end up doing the dirty on the back porch but it’s a very sweet scene, to be honest. It’s clear they both care for each other. Leone then gets a call from Mendez that Julie Paulson who was the first murdered was busted in a prostitution sweep in a different state some time ago and that Peter Crane was also caught up in this. I started to really wonder about Peter.

Leone and Mendez go to the Crane home to talk to him. He isn’t home but Leone gets a bit rude with Janet. Look I know he really likes Anne but he got super unprofessional with her and said some very mean things. I mean he essentially throws out that her husband was caught soliciting prostitutes and that he knew Karly and had met Lisa through his work with the women’s center (I guess he did work for the center and met Lisa through that). Once the boys leave we get the pov from Tommy who watched it all go down. Tommy reflects on how his mom has been lately and that her emotions have been erratic driving his dad from the home. We got a look into Dennis’s home that night and it’s bad. Frank is upset that he’s been taken off the case and takes it out on this family. Dennis runs from the home and it seems like his mother leaves in the night. We also get a look into Karly’s current doings and it’s sad. She keeps trying to fight and get out but it seems she’s killed. Steve comes over to Jane that night to help her prepare for a media thing. Jane goes into the yard because the dogs are going crazy and finds Karly buried out there. Jane scrambles to pull her out as Steve tries to stop her. Yet Jane seems to know that she’s alive and she’s right. Barley clinging onto life Karly is alive. Jane finds it weird that Steve didn’t try to help her pull Karly out. I wasn’t sad or happy that Karly was alive. Clearly, it was an accident that she was and it made me sad for her both ways. On one side she was now deaf and blind, but she was alive. However, with all the horror she lived through… I just don’t know.

It doesn’t seem as though Karley is going to live. Anne goes to talk to Peter to apologize for everything that has happened. She tells him that she would like to talk with Tommy in the hopes of repairing their relationship so he continues to trust her. Mendez goes to talk to Peter about his arrest for soliciting prostitutes. Peter brushes it off as no big thing, but Mendez doesn’t suspect so. While he wasn’t soliciting Julie in the arrest it seems odd that he would be caught up in the same crime sweep as she was in the same area. They may have not been together then but that doesn’t mean that is how it always was. Then Peter drops that he knows Steven was having an affair with Lisa. I wondered at this part if he was just trying to get the heat off of himself. We get a look at the park where Cody and Wendy are there playing. Dennis hides in the woods and calls Cody over. When Cody comes over Dennis stabs him in the stomach with a knife. Ugh… my heart just dropped at this point. I felt so terrible for Cody of course but I also felt a bit for Dennis. I mean realistically this event is not all that surprising. Just a lot of lives were ruined because the adults around these kids weren’t doing enough to help them (other than Anne but she’s not their parent so what can she do).

Wendy hears Cody cry out and goes to look. Dennis then tries to kill her but isn’t successful. Back at the station, they have Dennis in a room but no one can find his parents. I started to wonder at this point if maybe the killer was Frank because it seemed weird that no one could find him. When Anne goes in to talk to him he seems to have no understanding of the gravity of what he’s done. It’s clear Dennis has a very jaded perspective on things due to what he’s been around his whole life. He then tells Anne that his mom is dead and Frank killed her. Frank says that Dennis is lying but no one seems to believe this since his mom hasn’t shown up yet. Frank can’t share where she is. Anne and Frank get into another heated argument and she essentially tells him that all of this is his fault and that if he paid better attention to Dennis this could have been prevented. I 100% agree because a lot of this is clearly conducive to the environment he grew up in. At the hospital, the deputies talk to Steve, and he insinuates that they need to look at Dixon as he makes it seem like he takes a special interest in the shelter. I just rolled my eyes at this. It’s clear he’s just trying to take the heat off himself. At the hospital, Karly wakes up. She’s of course scared and can’t be calmed. She only calms once Jane presses a necklace in her hand. The necklace has a pendant on it of a woman, and they are given as gifts to the women at the center. Jane hoped she would recognize it and she did.

Peter calls Anne and invites her to have dinner with him and Tommy so that she can talk with him. The dinner goes well and Tommy gives Anne a gift. Janet had been on a binge throwing out different things in their home and Tommy grabbed something she threw out and gifted it to Anne. He tells her to open it once she’s home. On the way home from the dinner Anne is stopped by Frank. He’s clearly drunk and is very aggressive with her. He pretty much is going to kill her. Luckily Peter and Tommy pass them on their way home and Peter stops to help her. At this point, I was certain Frank was the killer and was losing control. Anne calls Leone to tell him what happened. While they are on the phone with each other Leone tells her that Frank is in the station and is holding a gun to Dixons’ head. Now I was very certain the killer was Frank and he had totally lost it. Everything had come unravelled at this point and he was going out suicide by cop. Mendez is able to sneak from the building and goes to Frank’s vehicle. He sees that in the vehicle is his wife dead, with her eyes, and mouth glued shut. I was like damn so it was Frank. No wonder Dennis was such a mess.

Frank realizes there’s nothing more he can do once they know his wife is dead and shoots himself. When Anne back home waiting to hear from Leone again opens Tommy’s gift she’s horrified by what’s in it. It’s a necklace from the women’s center. At this point I was confused. The necklace was only for women who had moved into the second part of the program which was when they moved into one of the halfway homes to pay rent in. Anne recognizes the necklace and before she can gather her thoughts Peter is at her door. At this point, I was like wait so it’s not Frank?? Then it made sense to me. If Peter was the real killer Frank must have done this in the hopes of passing off his wife’s death as one of the murders. Come to find out I was right on the money. Mendez and Leone go to look at Sharon’s body. They find that the cuts on her body were clearly an attempt at a copycat. They realize though while looking at it that the cuts resemble something. A damn crane. The man carved the animal that represented his name into these poor women. What a sick bastard.

Peter somehow knows that Tommy has gifted the necklace to Anne and attacks her. I am not sure how he concluded this unless he looked once he was home and noticed it was gone. It seems so weird that he would leave his trophies in a place that his family can access. Seems risky. I mean this would make me think that Janet saw the necklace as well and maybe came to the same conclusion or at least suspected something was going on. We find out that Tommy in an attempt to escape his mom had hidden in his dad’s car knowing that he would leave once he was tired with his mother. Peter doesn’t know he’s in the car. He sees his dad drag Anne out but doesn’t recognize his dad and thinks it is another man. I mean it makes sense that he didn’t recognize him because he’s never seen his das like this before. Vince goes to Annes to find her knowing what she did for supper this evening and now suspecting Peter worries. He sees that there’s been a struggle in the house. Along with that a discarded tube of super glue on the floor. I wondered at this point if Peter planned to kill both Tommy and Anne. He notices Tommy in the car and it’s clear that Tommy is afraid of him. Leone is now freaking out because he wants to save Anne. He goes to the Crane house to talk to Janet. He finds out that Janet currently has empty real estate properties and she can’t find the keys for them. They then realize that Tommy is gone. Peter thinks about what he’s going to do. The only thing he comes up with is he has to kill both of them. The only thing Peter was mad about was how this changed his life. He can’t return back to normal like he always did after a kill. It’s clear the man has some sort of sarcastic personality disorder. Everything revolves around how it affects him. His plan doesn’t work out and it doesn’t matter that he has to kill his child, he just knows that socially his child dying would cause change for him. Like what an ass. Anne is able to disable Peter when he goes to grab her in the trunk by spraying him with some oil spray that is in there. Tommy causes a distraction (unplanned) and she finds a moment to grab the tire iron and hit Peter over the head with it. Annes was able to get herself and Tommy in the car and drive off. I kind of wish that Tommy wasn’t brought into this at all. It didn’t feel totally necessary to me for him to be there except for him to kind of be extra traumatized by getting to see his father in this other light. It just made me sad that he was there because his dad was his safe place and now that’s gone. If he wasn’t there though Anne would have probably died so I am not sure.

Anne drives them to the police station where she takes a moment to comfort Tommy. I just really loved her in this moment. She was attacked and hurt and all she could think about was if Tommy was okay. She fully planned to die to save him, but he ended up saving her in a way by giving her that extra strength to fight. The story ends with Leone telling Anne he’s not going anywhere, he’s not going back to Quantico. He wants to stay with her. I definitely did a little happy dance. I was really rooting for these two despite the fact they hadn’t known each other for a long time. Karly makes somewhat of a recovery but is still struggling with the pain of what happened to her. Janet changes her and Tommy’s hair colour and moves them away from Oak Knoll. It ends with Janet throwing a box of jewelry off a bridge into the water and telling Tommy they are free. This tells us that Janet knew about Peter for a while. She knew where he kept his trophies and obviously hid them from the police. It made me think too that there is clearly a lot more jewelry in there than what we would think (three) meaning he’s killed more than what we know. He’s probably been doing it for a long time. This explains why Janet was so obsessive about their image. She knew one day it would probably come crumbling down and just kept trying to keep that day from coming. She must have known he was going to her work properties to use them. There were parts where I felt bad for Janet but with this ending, I definitely didn’t anymore. She clearly could have turned him in if she wanted to but she didn’t want to.

I really enjoyed this book and will definitely be reading more of Tami’s books going forward. I am also excited to get started on some of her other series. I would love to hear what you thought of this review. I would also love to hear if you’ve ever checked this series out before what you thought! Thank you for checking out this Baddie Book Review and feel free to connect on my Instagram @baddiebookreviews