3.5 Stars
eBook, 400 pages, Expected Publication: FEBRUARY 18, 2020
If you like police procedurals, this is going to be right up your alley! Here’s the Goodreads synposis:
They know exactly when he’ll strike… They just have to find him first.In all their years working for the Baywood police department, detectives A.L. McKittridge and Rena Morgan have never seen anything like it. Four women dead in forty days, each killed ten days apart. With nothing connecting the victims and very little evidence, the clock is already counting down to when the next body drops. A.L. and Rena will have to act fast if they’re going to find the killer’s next victim before he does.But identifying the killer’s next likely target is only half the battle. With pressure pushing in from all sides, a promising breakthrough leads the detectives to Tess Lyons, a woman whose past trauma has left her too damaged to appreciate the danger she’s in. Unwilling to let another woman die, A.L. and Rena will put everything on the line to keep Tess safe and end the killer’s deadly spree once and for all–before time runs out again.
My (spoiler-free) Review:
Beverly Long writes a novel reminiscent of a Law & Order: SVU show. We follow McKittridge and his partner, Rena Morgan, as they look for a serial killer that suffocates a woman every ten days in their home. There are no signs of forced entry or struggle. The detectives must find a link between the victims in order to know who will be next and how to stop him. The book is very procedural in this portion as we interview witnesses, talk through hunches, find suspects and narrow the list. I found the book to be very fluid and stable, no real highs until the very end. I found this type of waiting to be off-putting as I was more interested in why the serial killer was doing what he was doing which we find out later in the story and it isn’t a very strong meaning to stand on. I didn’t feel like I fully understood why the killer was doing what he was doing as his own trauma was only cursory and not explained in depth. So while I felt the story was great for those who like to walk through the case with the detectives, it lacked some gusto for me. I enjoyed the characters and their varied dimensions and lives, especially Rena. So there is much to like about this story!
Raging Book Reviews Recommended
*Special thanks to the publisher, MIRA, and Netgalley for gifting a copy for an honest review.
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