Anna S. (annapi) reviewed on 8/23/2010 + 334 more book reviews

I have mixed feelings about this. The first cross-over of JP Beaumont and Joanna Brady was a novelty, so I found their interaction interesting, though I didn't like the way it ended. This second one feels too gimmicky - I'm not sure how I'll feel if Jance continues to do this as it seems she is going to. In Seattle, JP's Special Homicide Investigation Team (I cringe whenever they use the acronym - the joke was amusing at first, but it's way way old now and extremely implausible) are investigating a series of similar murders of 6 women, wrapped in tarps and burned to death. Meanwhile Sheriff Joanna Brady is dealing with the case of a man repeatedly run over in an ATV park. Eventually their cases collide, of course.

While I found the mysteries themselves to be sound, the switching between the two points of view was not done as smoothly as before. I found it confusing (well, more disconcerting really) when POV would change more than once within a chapter, especially since Beau is done in first person and Joanna in third. While that makes it easy to identify, it breaks the flow in reading for me. Also, after throwing the two of them together in Partner in Crime, Jance seems to go out of her way to minimize the contact between them now, which seems like a cop-out after that kiss they shared in the end of the previous book. Granted it was a mistake, for both the characters and the author (in my opinion) but I could have used a little more interaction between the protagonists. And then the ending fell a little flat, not really unresolved, but leaving the reader guessing details about how exactly it all turns out, so kind of hanging. I was a teeny bit disappointed with this, but the mystery was good enough that I am still looking forward to the next book.

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