Sutherlin File by Ashley Farley ~ a Review

by Susan Roberts

Ashley Farley has long been one of my favorite authors with her Southern women's fiction novels.  This new series is her first foray into suspense and she proved that she can write anything!

Amazon affiliate links are used on this site.  Free books were provided for honest reviews.

Dark Current Rising

January 2026; AHF Publishing; 978-1956684889
audio, ebook, print (230 pages); crime fiction

When Detective Lane Sutherlin returns to Tidewell, Virginia, it isn’t by choice. She’s back in the small waterfront town she once called home to search for her childhood best friend, Addie, who has vanished without a trace.

Detective Lane Sutherlin is a detective in Richmond.  After an error on an arrest, she is given 30 days off to try to get her mind right.  When she receives a cryptic phone message from her hometown of Tidewell, Va.  She immediately returns to Tidewell to join the search for her best friend, Addie.  The first thing she finds when she returns to her family home is that her father has advanced dementia.  Her father was once a well-liked judge, and she is upset that her brother didn't tell her about their father. These two major plot lines keep the story tense with surprises on every page.  No one knows what happened to Addie -- even her own husband doesn't have a clue.  Addie never liked him, so he was the first person she wanted to investigate.  The deeper she digs, the more in Tidewell, the past is never really past—and some secrets refuse to stay buried. Lane must untangle lies, face old enemies, and risk everything to bring the truth to light…even if it means becoming a target herself.

This well-written novel was a real page turner, and the characters were all well-written.  It was easy to like Lane, who wanted desperately to find out what happened to Addie and, at the same time, deal with her father's dementia.  She was a strong woman and was willing to take on the rich people in town to find the answers

Buy Dark Current Rising at Amazon

Dark Current 

April 2026; AHF Publishing; 978-1969777134
audio, ebook, print (218 pages); crime fiction

Lane Sutherlin thought bringing her best friend’s killer to justice would finally give her peace. Instead, she’s left with a chilling acquittal, whispers of jury tampering, and a part-time role with the sheriff’s office that ends the moment she starts asking the wrong questions.

 

This second book in this new series is even more exciting than the first.  The story is a real page turner, and I had trouble putting it down.  Lane is a tough woman with a soft heart when her friends and family are involved.  She put herself in danger to get to the bottom of the corruption in her beloved hometown of Tidewell, Va.

As the book begins, Lane is in court during the trial for the murder of her best friend – she is hoping for a guilty verdict and is upset when the case ends with an acquittal.  She promises herself that she will make sure that the murderer gets convicted, but the more she digs into the case, the more corruption she finds in her small town. To get back at her, the police wrongly accuse her of the murder of one of the jurors, and it’s very difficult for her to prove her innocence.   Eventually, she puts not only herself but also her friends and her beloved father and brother in danger.   The Old Guard In town knows that Lane is the one person who can stop their control over the town, and they want to stop her before their corruption is exposed.  Lane must decide how far she’ll go to protect the place she still calls home—before the darkness closing in finally swallows her whole.

This book was an adrenaline rush all the way through – I can’t wait to read book 3 in the series.

Buy Dark Current at Amazon

Dark Current Reckoning

June 2026; Sweet Tea Stories; 978-1969777165
ebook, print (238 pages); crime fiction

With enemies closing in, a community on the brink, and the past demanding justice, Lane must decide what she’s willing to risk to finish what she started. Tidewell is running out of time.

And this time, the reckoning is hers.

The final book in this series is a real page turner – there is action in the town, within Lane’s family and a budding romance between Lane and two different men from her past!  It was hard to put the book down!

The Old Guard, including Lane’s stepfather, is working to create a land grab that would get rid of the historic parts of town and replace it with a resort and casino.  While she is fighting that battle – and risking her life to do so, new information emerges about her older brother’s death in a boating accident years earlier.  When she first started to dig into the boat accident, there was no police report and no autopsy but she worked to find a woman who had been on the boat and knew the real truth but was afraid to reveal it.  As she continues to fight against the town on two fronts, her father’s Alzheimer’s gets worse and she is caught between two old friends who both want to have a long-term relationship with her.  Is there a future for Lane with either man or does she even have a future in Tidewell?

This is third and final book in this new series.  I really enjoyed the series and would be thrilled if there were more books in the future about Lane and her family.

Buy Dark Current Reckoning at Amazon 

NOTE:  This is a series that needs to be read in order to fully understand the storyline.

Susan Roberts grew up in Michigan but loves the laid-back life at her home in the Piedmont area of North Carolina where she is three hours from the beach to the east and the mountains in the west.  She reads almost anything but her favorite genres are Southern Fiction and Historical Fiction.

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