Title:	Girl on the Run
	Author:	Daryl Wood Gerber
	Published:	April 7, 2016, Chucklin, Inc.
	No. of Pages:	296
	Cover Price:	$12.99 Paperback, $5.99 Kindle

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Although Daryl Wood Gerber generally writes cozy mysteries, Girl on the Run is a bona fide thriller with dozens of twists and turns, as well as surprises. Chessa Paxton is an event coordinator for the Boardwalk Casino in Lake Tahoe, and is in charge of a fundraiser called The Happily Ever After Ball. She has loved designing some of the costumes, and, although furious at her good-looking husband, Zach due to an argument they had just before leaving for the ball, is proud to show him off in his frog prince costume. During the ball, she asks Zach for water; he leaves, but gets waylaid and Wally Evert, a disgusting, but influential man in the community, gives her a bottle of water. After drinking it, she immediately begins to feel strange, and wakes up the next morning next to the body of her husband, who has been murdered. Word of the massacre of several of the guests, and that she is the suspect in all of the deaths gives her the incentive to run.

Gerber has a nice writing style, and is quite good at making her characters seem real. Readers can depend on plenty of suspense, since some of the main players include a politician, a television evangelist, and Evert, a corrupt businessman. With that combination, there is plenty of deceit and fraud, of course, and Chessa finds herself in the middle, trying to find answers, grieve her husband’s death, and survive, as she finds someone willing to kill her at every turn. Chessa’s mother was recently killed in a car explosion, and she longs for her mother to help her out. The politician, a senator, was married to her mother and has never been the same since her death. Chessa hates him.

Even though it seems that the three repulsive characters are most likely the ones behind the killings, and readers will think they have guessed who the murderer is, there are twists and turns to create plenty of doubt, and in the end, several unexpected scenarios.

Girl on the Run does contain innuendo of adult situations, but there is no graphic sex, language, or violence. It is a fairly fast read, and the characters will keep the readers’ interest until the very end.

Special thanks to NetGalley for supplying a review copy of this book.