A little girl witness her mother being murdered. She was strangled by the killer, but survived. Investigation went in circles with little progress while the girl was too traumatized to speak about the crime besides she's just 4 years old. Sounds like an interesting plot, but for some strange reason I couldn't keep my attention to the story.

Secrets to the GraveThis is a sequel to Deeper than the Dead set a few months later in 1986. Vince Leone is living in Oak Knoll, having retired from the FBI & married to Anne Navarre. He still offers his services as a consultant around the USA while Anne Navarre has quit teaching to pursue a degree in child psychology.A local artist, a single mother, slaughtered with her four-year-old child near death herself. Marissa was stabbed dozens of time while Haley, the child, was smothered & left for de...

I enjoyed this read, the second in the Oak Knoll series, the 80’s era, love Vince and Anne and Haley. Story kept me eagerly flipping pages.However, the mystery felt disjointed at times, repetitive, like an amateur attempt. I hate saying that because I’m a big Hoag fan. But in the end, I didn’t totally buy it and I felt like the story could’ve wrapped up 100 pages sooner.In my opinion, story contained unnecessary characters, repetitive dialogue and information that did nothing to drive the plot;

Tami Hoag is my NEW Favorite Author!! She can spin a tale of suspense like no other author. Her characters are believable and convincing of their parts! This latest book "Secrets of the Grave" Oak Knoll Series #2 is going to keep you on your toes! Just when I thought I knew who was the killer, she twists the characters again and WHAM!! It ends as you never thought it would. She can combine a love story with a mystery and twist it into the most amazing Thriller story you will read!

Very enjoyable suspense story. It starts with the murder of a young single mother who is found stabbed to death multiple times, her body mutilated. Her 4-year-old daughter, Haley, is the only witness to the crime, but Haley is shutting out the memories of what she saw. The story was fast-paced and told from multiple points of view. The crime scenes were grisly and the violence graphic. This was book 2 in Tami Hoag's Oak Knoll series, so there are a lot of familiar faces from the first book, Deep...

Another good suspenseful story. I have now figured out that whoever I think did it, is the absolutely wrong person. It will be anyone else. Entertaining read if you like reading this type of story.

I can honestly say that this book creeped me out a lot. With Hoag setting the first scene with a graphic description of the murder victim, and how our bodies break down after death, I may have been off food for several hours while I finished this book.It seems this days I am destined to read book series out of order. I read book #3 last year, and finally went and bought book #2. I will so just go buy book #1 just so I can complete the "Oak Knoll" series eventually though.Unlike with book #1, the...

Secrets to the Grave is an able follow-up to Deeper than the Dead, suspenseful and plenty engrossing, though it comes up a little bit short of its predecessor. I'm an unabashed Tami Hoag fan, and Secrets to the Grave is a perfectly good offering, but at the same time, she's done better.I was happy to revisit the key characters of Deeper than the Dead, and so soon after the events of that book that some many, many details carry over. I still enjoy the relationship between Anne Navarre and Vince L...

4.5 stars, raising to 5*In a sense this is a continuation of the first Oak Knoll book by this author, but new characters and a new murder brings other characters into view. While waiting for the trial of the first murder(er), a young artist is killed whose 4-year-old daughter may have witnessed the crime. This is more than a year after the events in Book 1, so there is follow-up on the pre-teen boy who stabbed a classmate, as well.Well written, and I kept going back and forth among the suspects

Really enjoyed this book. It's the follow up to Deeper Than The Dead, so I already knew the characters. The first page hooks me: a horrific murder is committed with the woman's four-year-old child left behind. Set in the mid-eighties in the early days of modern profiling, Hoag's research is evident and her characterization is very strong. As usual, Hoag gives you several red herrings, but the villan is ferreted out by well characterized cops. Lots of sub-plots going on in the book - a new marria...

I won this book in a First Reads giveaway and I feel very lucky to have gotten it! It is a terrific book. This is the first book I have read by Tami Hoag, but I now consider myself a fan. The book never has a slow spot and for its over 400 pages is a very quick read.I highly recommend "Secrets to the Grave." If you like Harlan Coben and Tana French, this is definitely a book for you!

This book got lucky. It was lucky that it was an audiobook, and it was lucky that I didn't have another to switch to. First of all, I found out on goodreads that this was actually a second book (The audiobook case says nothing about Oak Knoll #2)! I do think it could stand alone, however, I spent the opening bit wondering more about the extensive backstory (which, as it turns out, was the first book) and trying to put the pieces together. Maybe it would have been easier had I read the first one,...

Decent second installment in the Oak Knoll series.While this can be read as a stand alone, many of the characters and scenarios are continuations from the first novel.As a whole, I really like Hoag's writing, which is competent and smooth. The characters in this series aren't as strong as some other series I've read, but they're good enough. What I really find compelling about her books is her efforts to explore through fiction the anatomy of a killer. Mysteries and who-done-its are fun, but the...

When an author can keep me on the edge of my seat flip-flopping back and forth with guesses of whodunit, I love it. And although I happy to say I'd pegged the guilty party fairly early on, because of the outstanding writing, near the end I kept doubting myself on just about every other page. Ms. Hoag, you've done it again - another winner in my "book!"

"A woman lay dead, her hair spreading out around her head like a dark cloud. Her skin was the color of milk. Her lips had been painted as red a rose- as red as her blood must have been as it drained from the wounds carved into her flesh. She lay discarded like a life-size broken doll. Made up, torn up, and cast aside. Her brown eyes cloudy and lifeless. Beside her lay a smaller doll- her child. Head resting on her shoulder , face streaked with the last of her mother's lifeblood."& so begins a da...

It's funny how reminders dropped throughout this book from the 80's brought back so much memory. And the book was really good too!

Not done reading this yet, but wanted to put warnings/spoilers here in case I forget:(view spoiler)[1. Character with autism becomes a murder suspect and later kills himself.2. Set in 1986, so in the time of when LGBTIQ people didn't publicly come out - particularly if their family was involved with Republican politics. So there are slurs and homophobia aplenty here. And I think a police member outed someone to their parents.3. Also transphobia and fat-shaming, because the Sassy Gay Friend is me...

OK, calling this book a fun read, or an entertaining one doesn't quite send the right message. It's a compelling mystery, with some great characters. It's also quite disturbing, deliberately so.Secrets to the Grave looks at several aspects of violence, starting with an extremely brutal murder of a young mother, and the attempted murder of her 4 year old child. Several other characters are brutally attacked, some characters are living with the results of previous violence-- some recent, some from...

Secrets to the Grave is the latest book in Tami Hoags deeper than the dead micro series, It picks up one year after the events of Deeper than the Dead. As the story opens residents of Oak Knoll, California find themselves once again dealing with murder. Anne , Vince, Tony and the rest of the characters are back on the scene to solve the new murder and finish wrapping up the loose ends in the See- No -Evil case from the previous boo. Tami Hoag draws her readers into the story in such a way that t...

Another fascinating visit to the mid 1980's and Oak Knoll, California. Anne, Vince, Tony and the gang are preparing for the trial of the bad guy from Book #1, and another horrific murder in their midst shakes the sleepy college town. This time the victim is a local artist whose four year old daughter was also left for dead. But the little girl lives and just might know who killed her mother. Not quite as riveting as Book #1, SECRETS TO THE GRAVE is still a fascinating read that kept me guessing