Title: Beautiful Funeral
Author: Jamie McGuire
Publisher/Year:  CreateSpace  8/2/16
Length:   242 Pages
Series:  The Maddox Brothers #5

Overview

Losing has never been easy for a Maddox, but death always wins.

Eleven years to the day after eloping in Vegas with Abby, Special Agent Travis Maddox delivers his own brand of vigilante justice to mob boss Benny Carlisi. Vegas’s oldest and most violent crime family is now preparing for vengeance, and the entire Maddox family is a target.

The secret Thomas and Travis have kept for a decade will be revealed to the rest of the family, and for the first time the Maddoxes will be at odds. While none of them are strangers to loss, the family has grown, and the risk is higher than ever. With brothers against brothers and wives taking sides, each member will make a choice—let the fear tear them apart, or make them stronger.

My Thoughts

I love this series and i’m really impressed how Ms Mcguire brought us to somewhat of a conclusion.  Where this story differs from the others is that we have each chapter in a different characters POV – all trying to match us up to the point in time that we’re at while maintaining the flow of the underlying plot line.

Thomas and Liis are the foundation for this story – as we know, they are FBI and have been working to take down one of the biggest crime families in Vegas.  With the help of Travis and Abby, they’ve made more headway than ever, however it’s put their families in so much direct danger.  That’s really where this story takes us.

Now that they are out for blood – the Maddox’s are on their guard, and we see that the crime family has a few tricks up their sleeves still, resulting in the death of Thomas.  Where we go from there as the family copes is an interesting journey.

Throughout this series, we have seen the fairly unbreakable bond that there is between the brothers and that’s something that comes into question in this final installment.  They are taking sides as new information is revealed, and it becomes quite messy.  IF that weren’t enough, their wives are also getting at each other’s throats – taking it out in ways that one never imagined.

In addition to that, there are their personal lives at play – some great and some less than cozy and we get to see how all that plays out as the family copes with death.

What throws us for a loop is that while we have one funeral, that’s not all that we get here.  There’s still more to come and it’s shocking, surprising and all the same the ending that we all kind of wanted to have given the nature of the characters.  I don’t know how Ms Mcguire was able to keep it all straight and especially keep it interesting in this last book, but she did it was amazing ability.  I’m bummed to say goodbye to them, but i’m glad that we at least get to meet some of the other characters that we’ve read about in previous installments.  the series won’t totally end i think – just take a new path.