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    Loyalty
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    Loyalty
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    Loyalty
    Audiobook12 hours

    Loyalty

    Written by Ingrid Thoft

    Narrated by Rebecca Soler

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    The Ludlows are a hard-charging family, and patriarch Carl Ludlow treats his offspring like employees--which they are. But his daughter, Fina, is a bit of a black sheep. A law school dropout, her father keeps her in the fold as the firm's private investigator, working alongside her brothers.

    Juggling her family of high-powered (and highly dysfunctional) attorneys, the cops and Boston's criminal element is usually something Fina does without breaking a sweat. But when her sister-in-law disappears, she's caught up in a case unlike any she's encountered before. 

    Carl wants things resolved without police interference, but the deeper Fina digs, the more impossible that seems. The Ludlows close ranks, and her brother Rand and his unruly teenage daughter Haley grow mysteriously distant from the family. As Fina unearths more dirt, the demands of family loyalty intensify. But Fina is after the truth--no matter the cost.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateJun 18, 2013
    ISBN9781101620885
    Unavailable
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    Reviews for Loyalty

    3.5/5

    72 ratings24 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Fina Ludlow, a law school dropout, works as a private investigator for her high-powered family of Boston lawyers. When her sister-in-law, Melanie, disappears, Fina unexpectedly finds herself forced to choose between family loyalty and the truth.With strong characterizations, a family that gives new meaning to dysfunctional, and a tough, take-no-prisoners woman investigator, there is much to appreciate in this first book in a new series. The only detractor in this intriguing narrative is Fina’s overuse of offensive coarse language . . . using foul language does not make her strong, cool, or tough and many readers may find themselves annoyed by the continual barrage of expletives. As the plot takes several unforeseen turns, readers will find themselves pulled into the mystery. Unexpected twists and reveals will keep the pages turning.Recommended.
    • 4/5
      Fina Ludlow is a great new hot,tough,pull no punches PI in the book Loyalty by Ingrid Thoft.Fina's Father and her three Brothers are lawyers,worse they are personal injury lawyers which means very few people are what you would call friendly to the firm. When Fina fails law school she goes to work for the family firm as a private investigator.When her sister-in-law disapears she is told to solve the case and solve it fast.Fina plows into the case with her very unique style.The style is Oh thet looks like a hornet nest let me hit it four or five times with this stick to be sure.Luckly she has people willing and able to help. A very sexy police detective and an even sexier friend and masseur among them.I am looking forwrd to see Fina Ludlow and author Ingrid Thoft grow as a character and a writer.I received a copy of this book in a giveaway.Bruce Hamilton
    • 3/5
      When I started this book I expected to give it 4 stars, maybe 5. The set up was strong and fun. The tangle of plot threads intrigued. The family dynamics entertained. And you really can't have too many detectives with Attitude, so it was a pleasure to meet another one. Also, early on, there was an absolutely great line about how children are like NASA launches - you can invest lots of money and time in them only to see them go quickly off course. (Sorry I can't provide the actual quote - i loaned my copy of the book to a friend.) But as the pages turned, my enthusiasm waned. The detective lost some appeal when she became preoccupied with wardrobe changes and when she turned out to be well nigh perfect (wealthy, gorgeous, ballsy and more). The threats against the detective felt increasingly manufactured rather than intrinsic to the plot. The shocking family secret was telescoped waaay in advance. There were many references to real places and neighborhoods in the Boston area, yet overall the book was low on atmosphere. And by the end of the first book in this series, I am already tired of the family. Because I loved the first third of this, I would try another book in this series, to see whether the stuff that bothers me was tied to this particular book, or persists through the series.I got this book from LibraryThing in exchange for an honest review.
    • 4/5
      As the title would suggest, there is extreme loyalty amongst the members of the Ludlow family. Loyalty to themselves, each other, and most importantly to their father, Carl. But this loyalty goes far beyond the ties of family. Besides being their father, Carl is also their boss. He heads a high-powered law firm where each of his children work. His three sons all partners at the firm, follow a strict diet, religious exercise routine, and do everything in their power to keep their father happy. Fina, the sole surviving daughter of the family, could not be more different. She never did the law school thing, opting instead to apprentice with the firm's private investigator. Now, as the lead investigator for the firm, she brings her irreverent spontaneity to everything she does. To be clear, she still has a strong loyalty to her family, but she definitely has her own unique way of showing it. The family is rocked when Melanie, the wife of brother Rand Ludlow goes missing. This isn't the first time this has happened. In fact, there has always been tension between Rand, Melanie, and their teenage daughter Haley, but this time things are different. Following an argument with her husband at their daughter's school the day before, she is literally nowhere to be found. Even worse for the family, all evidence points to Rand as being responsible for her disappearance. Rand is no stranger to minor run ins with the law, but he insists that he had nothing to do with this. With the police, who naturally have a frayed relationship with the family of lawyers to begin with, begin investigating Rand, Carl tasks Fina with getting to the bottom of things. In Fina, author Ingrid Thoft has imagined a fireball of a character who isn't afraid to get her hands dirty to find the truth. As she investigates, she is forced to battle her own emotions and decide whether to place her loyalty in her own sense of moral justice, or in the family that she has devoted her life to. Reminiscent of an early Kay Scarpetta or Stephanie Plum, Fina is the kind of strong, endearing female character that you can't help but root for. In addition to the suspenseful mystery, Thoft involves Fina in an unconventional love triangle that gives us glimpses into her sympathetic if not a little bit twisted psyche. The mystery of itself does become a bit predictable towards the end, but the fun is in witnessing this entertaining character discover the secrets. With Loyalty, her debut novel, Ingrid Thoft has quickly established her place in crime fiction through her strong characters, suspenseful pacing, and charming wit.
    • 3/5
      This novel, by Ingrid Thoft, is a great first novel. I read it quickly and looked forward to each chapter. I felt the character development was strong and the story was believable. I felt Fina, the main character, was a little exaggerated. I had trouble relating to her as a woman. In addition, the profane language was a little excessive. Overall, I would enjoy reading another installment and look forward to Ms. Thoft's growth as a crime novelist.
    • 5/5
      Excellent! I loved this book. The story was well written and fast paced. What seemed like disparate parts came together in the end in a satisfactory manner. The protagonist, Fina Ludlow, was struggled with her duty to her dysfunctional family, her desire to resolve the murder of her sister-in-law, and protection of her niece. The characters were well developed and multifaceted. Even unsympathetic characters like Carl and Elaine, her parents, were shown to have a soft side in their mourning of their infant girl. Loyalty is a good title for this story. Loyalty to family, loyalty to friends, loyalty to the law ( well that one was stretched by Fina a lot) and ultimately loyalty to one's self underlined the plot. I would recommend this book strongly and look forward to more about the Ludlow family and more from Thoft. An excellent first novel!
    • 4/5
      If Ingrid Thoft was attempting to write a summer read that was too fun to put down, then she has exceeded her goal. "Loyalty" is a PI novel that runs at an entertaining clip and the "ah ha" moment holds off until the final 50-100 pages which Thoft expertly wraps. Fina Ludlow is a PI working primarily for the family law firm who finds herself with an assignment to find her missing sister-in-law who is eventually discovered to have been murdered. Because the presumed guilty husband is Fina's brother, the idea of loyalty eventually twists into being loyal to the family or to right/wrong. Fina chooses correctly. The dysfunctional Ludlow family that Thoft has created promises to be a large canvas for future PI adventures and I will be sure to watch for. I received this book through the Early Reviewers program.
    • 4/5
      Almost a Kinsey Milhone type PI. Fina has an attitude, but I wouldn't really call her "sassy", just determined. She definitely isn't a Stephanie Plum, her close friends are not quirky, nor are the situations fantastically outrageous.Rich girl that can't break the ties that bind her to family, but she is the "maverick". That is OK, but it would be more interesting if she left the family and truly was on her own, with more interesting "friends". Maybe Milloy should be a macho bisexual, at first I thought he might be gay. And Christian is rather a flat character, he's there but I just don't feel much of a spark of life in him.At least the plot isn't easy to figure out who did what to whom within the first 5 chapters.A decent read, a good start for a 1st book.
    • 3/5
      I won this book as a goodreads first-read giveaway. It was a suspense-filled thriller. I wanted to keep reading to find out who the murderer was in this convoluted story. It was hard to keep track of the abundance of characters which made following the plot at times difficult.
    • 4/5
      If you're the type of reader who has to have at least one completely likable character in the books you read, think twice before you pick up Loyalty. The Ludlow clan puts the diss in dysfunctional. Carl Ludlow and his wife are the stuff of nightmares and psychiatrists' bank accounts. They have all their children under their thumbs with the exception of Fina, who's able to crawl out from under on a regular basis. Fina delights in being a hard-nosed, wisecracking maverick who lives on junk food and the desire to annoy her father. She knows the damage her parents have inflicted on all their children, but she still feels loyalty to the clan. After all, they're family, and there aren't that many people around who would understand anyway (even if she did feel like explaining).Her sense of loyalty is the impetus for her investigation into her sister-in-law's disappearance. Melanie is one of the very few family members Fina likes, and with Melanie's teenage daughter Haley going off the rails, Fina knows her niece needs her mother now more than ever. So in her abrasive and sometimes combative manner, she starts looking. Although I thought the book needed some tightening and I guessed the crucial fact very early on, I enjoyed this debut novel. I wanted to see just what sort of character Fina Ludlow was... what she would do when she was faced with some very difficult decisions. Fina answered each of my questions in no uncertain terms. I'm now looking forward to reading the second book in this series, Identity. Even though I wouldn't want to spend much time in Fina's company, I like her.
    • 4/5
      The story begins with an unknown woman being bound, gagged, and wrapped in chains. She's thrown into the ocean and sinks into the darkness below.

      Fina Ludlow is a private detective working in her dysfunctional family's personal injury law firm. She's been tasked to find her sister-in-law, Melanie, who has disappeared. It's just a matter of time before Fina's brother, Rand, becomes the prime suspect.

      Her family is the ambulance chasing version of a Mafia family. They've made a lot a questionable moral decisions and people are scared of them. Fina's father, Carl, and three brothers, (Rand, Scott, and Matthew) want Fina to find Melanie before the police get involved. It's easy to see any of them as a suspect in Melanie's disappearance.

      Fina is a tough talking private eye. In some ways she reminded me of Stephanie Plum in the Evanovich series. She's a 34 year old slob who eats junk for breakfast and gets into fights with suspects. She irritates everyone but we like her because she's sassy and resilient. I liked Fina. Her personal life is a real mess but she's loyal to her friends and family. There's a lot of snappy dialogue in the story and Fina's relationship with her bullying father is interesting.

      Lots of characters are introduced in the beginning but I thought they were all well defined and interesting. The story was good and the plot were entertaining. It wasn't particularly suspenseful but I was in the market for a fast, entertaining read and was more than happy with it. I would definitely try another of this author's books if she continues to write a series featuring Fina.
    • 4/5
      Compelling but a little disturbing.
    • 4/5
      Ingrid Thoft's debut novel Loyalty is a fast-moving Boston thriller starring the memorable character Fina Ludlow, private investigator, and her spectacularly dysfunctional family. When her sister-in-law goes missing, Fina is charged with finding out what happened, but as she starts pulling on threads, things quickly begin to unravel and some of the things she discovers aren't anything you ever want to find.A good, quick potboiler.
    • 3/5
      I don't know, is "friends with benefits" really that pervasive in our society? (Even goofy Stephanie Plum has a more morality in her choices to be involved with two men.) Profane language certainly is. But both of these factors being present in this novel turned me off. Fina was an interesting new female PI - but a bit too over the top. She's no Kinsey Millhone, Carlotta Carlyle, or V.I. Warshawski. Story good.
    • 2/5
      I really wanted to like this book - who can resist a new female PI. However, I didn't find much to like. First off, the book is too long for the story; it should have had a hundred pages edited out. How many stake-outs do we have to sit through?As for Fina Ludlow, except that she works for her family's law firm, she is the same as all the female PI's before her. Good-looking. Killer body. Single with two male friends with benefits. Tough - she can be badly beaten up but check out one more lead before going to the hospital. I know its fiction, but could there be a more realistic female PI?The story pretty much withers at the end. The plot is that Fina's sister-in-law goes missing, the found dead and her brother is the main suspect. Fina's job is to clear his name. She starts with no clues, finds clues, finds the murderer and it is all swept under the literary rug to make way for a more dysfunctional end.
    • 4/5
      This debut novel is a surprisingly good PI novel. The investigator in question is Fina Ludlow, the black-sheep daughter of a family of ambulance-chasing lawyers, the kind that advertise on cable TV. Since she flunked out of law school, she has become the family firm's investigator. Fina is tough, sarcastic, and a bundle of suppressed emotions, which is an interesting combination in a private eye. Ingrid Thoft handles the plot well, cutting back and forth between different characters, putting the reader in the same place as the detective: how do all these pieces fit together? Just as Fina must struggle to see clearly what has happened, so too the reader must try to solve the mystery. Thoft is scrupulously fair in outlining the clues. Readers looking for a satisfying puzzle to solve will enjoy this book. As will anyone who likes a good private eye story. Fina comes across as skilled, passionate, angry. She spars with the police as often as she spars with her parents and many brothers. The tone of the book is hard, rather than brooding or dark. In the end the puzzle is solved and the some degree of justice prevails in a very realistic manner. Although Thoft is a first-time novelist, she seems very skilled. She occasionally will tell the reader something the reader should pick in a bit of dialog; Thoft otherwise acquits herself very well in this debut novel.
    • 4/5
      A decent first-time effort from Ingrid Thoft, though I found the plot heavy at times, weighed down by a few gimmicks. It's also bad when the reader has long figured out at least part of the conclusion before the main character -- a private investigator -- does so. Also a little tired of all the focus on people's physical characteristics -- and the distinctions between the beautiful people and the not-so. Okay storytelling, but should have had a bit more editing to sharpen the focus.
    • 4/5
      Enjoyable PI book especially since this is a debut novel. I thought character development was great and look forward to the next installment.
    • 4/5
      I'm happy to see a new author of mysteries with a strong woman in the main role. Loyalty was intriguing and well-written. Although Fina is willing to bend some rules (as most fictional PI's appear to do), she adheres to the important ones when it counts. I'm looking forward to Throft's next book.
    • 3/5
      I was expecting a little more from this book, it was good but, took awhile to get through because there was just not one character that I liked much… at all.Fina is a private investigator in her family’s law firm and she gets a tough case, her sister in law Melanie is missing and it’s up to Fina to put the pieces of this puzzle together and find out what happened.The police are looking at Fina’s brother Rand, Melanie’s husband who is a partner in the firm that their father runs with an iron fist, and he, like all husbands is the obvious suspect.Fina needs help trying to catch the bad guy so she enlists some from her cop friend with “benefits” and a friend/lover who worry about her, try to get her to eat food as opposed to junk, try to stop her getting in fights with the bad guys and visit her in the hospital when she doesn't listen to them.Fina must figure out if someone has a grudge against the Ludlow’s or maybe just the husband Rand, does it have something to do with porn? Medical malpractice, money laundering? Fina’s mother is a mommie dearest, her father is a nasty piece of work as is a couple of her brothers….definitely a dysfunctional family.for a first book it is good, I will be waiting for the next...
    • 4/5
      LOYALTY by Ingrid ThoftLOYALTY will have your heart pounding right along with “Fina”, the female and only non-lawyer member of the Ludlow family. Fina is a private investigator trying very hard to remain loyal to her family while solving the murder of one of her sisters-in-law and striving to stay alive herself. Occasional clichés notwithstanding LOYALTY is a well written, well plotted, heavy action mystery that will keep you guessing until the final pages. The Ludlows are a family of shady lawyers – ambulance chasers and defenders of disreputable characters -- with some redeeming qualities and a coterie of assorted friends, cops and “helpers.” Fina is the answer to their need for a PI, a hard working, hard living, hard loving female who is intensely loyal to her family even if her brother is the prime suspect. Each character is well defined although you may need a list to keep them all straight at the beginning of this engaging and thrilling tale. By tale’s end you will be hoping Fina and her family appear in many sequels.
    • 4/5
      Do we ever REALLY know anyone?Loyalty by Ingrid Thoft opens with the heinous murder of an unnamed woman who is bound, gagged and thrown overboard in the middle of the ocean while still alive. Next, we are introduced to the Ludlows, a family comprised mainly of hard-hitting lawyers, a father and his three sons; Rand, Scotty and Matthew. I say mainly as the exception is the lone daughter, Fina, who flunked out of law school but found her calling in private investigations, which she does for her family’s law firm.The main story centers on the disappearance of Rand’s wife, Melanie, and the subsequent investigation led by Fina, at the behest of her father. Fina is a tough cookie; one that I enjoyed reading about as she barrels through interviews, attacks on her person, and less than confidence-building interactions with her parents, which is putting it mildly. These situations also help us to gain a sense of the character of her parents and brothers which is integral to the plot. The action heats up even further as the unnamed woman murdered in the opening scene turns out to be the missing Melanie – no surprise there, right? We all could see that piece of the puzzle coming as I believe that is what the author intended. The mystery is not so much about who the woman was, but why she was murdered, and that is where the real meat of the story kicks in.I highly recommend this book – it caught my attention in the opening murder scene and kept me riveted until the very last page. I will certainly be looking for more great books from this author. I received this book as an Early Reviewer Copy.
    • 4/5
      Fina Ludlow owes a deep debt to her forerunner Kinsey Milhone and this makes her an entertaining and ingenious character. Fina's independence and feisty quirks give her an entertaining depth, although in her next outing I hope she contains her eyerolls to the minimum. We as readers are told many times that Fina's family is challenging so give us credit for realizing this without adding the emphasis of continual eyerolling! Loyalty was a very entertaining read and Thoft keeps the pace at a brisk clip. Although I enjoy witty heroines I am not a fan of comedic murder mysteries. Loyalty provided the perfect combination of sardonic wit and a suspensful story while dealing with a serious subject that was never trivialized.
    • 4/5
      At first the book seemed overly derivative: beautiful, independent, sassy investigator, casual relationships with a couple of gorgeous men that just might develop into something more meaningful if, and only if, she ever wants that, a complicated family she loves/hates, respects/disdains, willingness to ignore legal boundaries and insider contacts that help her do that, ability to sustain several injuries and keep on pushing, terrible eating habits. Sounds familiar, right? Also, new characters were introduced quickly, usually without context, making it difficult to piece relationships together.But after the first few chapters it began to come together and all in all it was a satisfying read. Fina really is exploring the meaning of loyalty as she works this case involving family members as victims and suspects and, as is usually the situation, the decisions she must make are not clear-cut. While much of the time Fina seems tough and judgmental she occasionally acknowledges that others may have different histories that constrain their actions even if she doesn’t understand them, and it is this that makes her interesting and worth getting to know as the series develops. The book will keep you engrossed and while you may figure out some of the plot twists ahead of time there is enough complexity that you will need to finish it to tie things up.