The beautifully complementary, mismatched partnership between Devlin and Falco was my favorite aspect of the book.
Detective Kerri Devlin is stuck with a new partner who has a reputation as a loose cannon; the pair is on a homicide case that is turning out to be more layered and complicated than it first seemed; and Devlin can't seem to keep her teenage daughter happy or her ex-husband off her case.
Webb provides multiple mysteriously missing persons, mixed motivations, naive characters who might be ruined by the sinister people in power, and an occasional first-person narrator who isn't what they first seem. I thought the periodic emergence of that point of view was really intriguing.
A few nitpicky notes: Some vital events occur off screen and are then summarized by Devlin, and I was confused as to why, because this largely takes the punch out of them. I wasn't sure the repeated foreshadowing that everything was about to go to hell worked without backing it up sooner with actual havoc. The multiple villains felt almost interchangeable in that they were equally reprehensible. And a very minor issue: the "Hey, pretty girl" greeting from the recently met grown-man male detective partner to Devlin's thirteen-year-old daughter was jarring and puzzling. To a lesser extent, so was the daughter's telling her traumatized aunt how pretty she is (while soothingly brushing her aunt's hair).
I didn't feel as though the detectives' conclusions or police work were always logical. (No one checked the medications or searched the baby's bedroom after the crime? Police and family are worried about a teenage character who disappeared, yet they don't go by her workplace, where she says she is reporting each day, because they don't want to compromise her internship? A detective says to someone who is about to confess something potentially related to the case, "I won't tell anyone"? No one thinks to offer protection to a loved one who's about to potentially fatally antagonize a culprit? Rule-follower Devlin's behavior at one crucial moment goes against her solid training and against her character as shown to us thus far--will there be repercussions in later books, or is this considered renegade justice she's suddenly taking part in?)
The beautifully complementary, mismatched partnership between Devlin and Falco was my favorite aspect of the book. I also loved Falco's back story and his mysterious contact Cross, and I'd love to see more of both of them in future books.
Webb has written 150 novels. One hundred and fifty. But this is the first book I've read of hers, courtesy of NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer in exchange for an honest review.
What did you think?
I'm a sucker for an unlikely detective partnership, and this was a good one.
Are you a Webb fan? Where have I been without knowing about Webb and her books for all this time?
I mentioned this title in Three Books I’m Reading Now, 10/13/20 Edition.
If you like mysteries, you might also want to look at the Greedy Reading List The Six Best Mysteries I Read Last Year.