The last victim identified is Dr. Hannah Strindberg, head of a secretive project on Helix Island on Puget Sound. A board of trustees and The Department of the Interior, under Fish and Wildlife Services, supported the Breedhaven project. Hannah's colleague at Fish and Wildlife Services, Oly Olson, is certain the fire was meant for Hannah, but he's not sure why or who is behind. He interrupts agent Venus Diamond's leave of absence and puts her on the case.

Venus is newly married, depressed and not willing to examine the cause of her depression. She traded her Harley for an Astor Martin DB7, promised her husband to take a year off work, lives an idyllic nouveau-riche life ... and has taken to counting every step she takes (ten steps from the bed to the bathroom, so many steps from the front door to the garage door; it never ends).

At first she refuses Oly's request to take over the investigation. She doesn't want to break her promise to her husband, but she can't get the case out of her mind. As luck would have it, her husband Richard takes an overseas consulting job, leaving Venus free to report back to work, without having to confront Richard or her own feelings.

As Venus begins her investigation, Breedhaven and Dr. Stringberg's greatest (and most secret) project of all is stolen and the body count rises as the thieves search for the decoding materials. Time is running out ... Venus has to find the killers and stop them: her mother is next on the hit list.

Overall, I thought this was a good read, but several little things added up to keep it from being a great read. It's a little hard to demonstrate without giving "spoilers," so please excuse the vagueness of some of the examples.

After one of the murders, Venus receives a call on Christmas, an officer responding to an APB put out by Fish & Wildlife Services as part of the investigation into the murder. We never see Venus make the connection between the suspect and the murder or put out the APB. When the bad guys discover the secret project they stole is a fake, they state they don't know where to find the original. Yet, when we next see them, they've gone directly to the hiding place. How did they make the leap from no knowledge to complete knowledge?

There's a subplot that seems unnecessary, having to do with an unsolved murder, a suspicious death on the island, and the Island's local council members. The only thing it has to do with the Breedhaven mystery is that, when solved, it proves the maliciousness of the bad guy - but we already know that because the Island mystery is solved after the bad guy has been taken down.

One Island person is kidnapped by the killers and kept around for a while, which goes against the killers m.o. Not only that, but the Islander makes some kind of deal and is let go. We're not told that she's been let go until the end of the book, nor are we told of the deal she made. Why didn't they kill her right away, why was she let go? We're not told, and the whole thing feels out of place.

Moody doesn't go much in depth with Venus or the bad guys. Early in the book, she does go into depth with Oly Olson and his relationship with Hannah, only to have Oly drop almost completely out of the book afterwards. She goes in depth with two of the Island council members, but he's not a major player in the Breedhaven mystery. I would have rather seen more depth on the major characters, such as Venus and the bad guys, then the minor characters.

So while the book holds your attention, little things get in the way of making it a can't-put-it-down page-turner; it doesn't feel as tight as it should be. Habitat is part of the Venus Diamond Mystery series, but I'm not compelled to read the other books in the series based on this book.

--Jamie Engle