Murder on the Mind by L.L. Bartlett

I forget who recommended Bookbub to me but I ended up signing up and grabbing free Kindle books if they sounded remotely interesting. I snagged this copy based on the premise and didn't really delve much deeper. Now, I see that it's part of a series and was originally published in 2008 (despite my regular reading-series-out-of-order luck, this happened to be the first book!).

Goodreads tells me there are 10 books in the Jeff Resnick series and, based on this book, I think this will be a series I enjoy.

Resnick is a former insurance investigator who has been unemployed for a good long while. When we meet him, he's about to start a new job and get his life back. Unfortunately, a couple of crackhead kids changes his plans. He's mugged and beaten over the head with a baseball bat. While in a coma as a John Doe, the kids ransack his apartment and steal everything of value and deface the rest. Assholes. Resnick's half brother, Richard, comes to the rescue to take Jeff back to Buffalo to recover. Their relationship is tumultuous at best. Richard was left millions in inheritance while Jeff has nothing. Richard is a doctor while Jeff struggled to stay employed as an investigator. Yin Meet Yang.

Richard's girlfriend, Brenda, is a nurse and welcomes Jeff with open arms. Jeff starts having visions, where he sees a murder happen and feels the horror and emotion of the crime. Could this be a symptom of the brain injury? Maybe, but it turns out, the visions are real. A prominent banker in town is found gutted like a deer, strung up in his garage, exactly like Jeff's vision.

Compelled to investigate, we pretty much dive in to a crime of passion and greed that would have gone unsolved if not for Resnick. Since this is the first book, we learn what he is learning about his new gift at the same time. I'm pretty curious to see where he goes from here and what he can do without a broken arm and brain injury.

Good murder mystery. Definitely drew me in to read the series. And .... yay free books!