Maura (maura853) - , reviewed on 8/26/2020 + 542 more book reviews

Very readable, and enjoyable (if that's the right word for a novel about a situation that is just -- mild Spoiler Alert -- so very sad), but I think I'm developing resistance to some of Hunter's signature moves. What seemed fresh and interesting in Books 1 and 2 of the DCI Adam Fawley novels begins to grate here, in Volume 3. I'm lookin' at you, multiple and repeated, and somewhat unnecessary shifts of perspective. And don't try to come the innocent with me, occasional pastiches of news reports, complete with sidebar headlines, social media comments and know-it-all trolling ... What seemed fresh and interesting before (and narrative strategies that she might grow into, and find increasingly interesting ways to use) have now, it seems to me, settled into just a quirky things that she does to fill the pages until, inevitably, the Not-Quite-As-Clever-As-They-Think-They-Are detectives finally put two and two together, and arrive at something other than 5.

Having said that, one thing I really liked in this novel is the way that Hunter faces up to the fact that her detectives aren't infallible seers who take one look at the evidence, and nail the perp. It's pretty well a cliche that modern detectives have to be "troubled," but oftentimes, writers don't allow the Trouble to get in the way of the detective's genius. Here, Hunter confronts the fact that "trouble" may mean distraction -- and a tendency to read the evidence through the lens of that trouble, and come to entirely the wrong conclusions.

"Like everything else in this case, what's on the surface may not be a superficial as it seems."

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