On the surface, Rachel Marin is an ordinary single mother; on the inside, she’s a fierce, brilliant vigilante. After an unspeakable crime shatters her life, she changes her identity and moves to a small town in Illinois, hoping to spare her children from further trauma, or worse. But crime follows her everywhere.
Pinter does a masterful job of ramping up suspense about the Marin family’s past and the current case, spinning an absolutely riveting plot with a cast of full-bodied, fallible characters, in what seems the start of a promising series. Fans of both domestic thrillers and police procedurals should get in at the start.
Pinter’s outstanding series launch is a deft combination of domestic suspense and police procedural that recalls the works of Harlan Coben and Linwood Barclay. Both an unstoppable force of nature and painfully human, Rachel is a heroine readers will not soon forget.
Pinter builds a complex plot on the dual mysteries of Constance’s murder and Rachel’s transformation from suburban mom to crack investigator and lethal streetfighter. But the story has so many subplots and timelines that it can feel overstuffed, and some crucial questions asked early on are answered so late the reader might be surprised to be reminded of them. Pinter creates engaging characters, though, and keeps the suspense taut ... Determined to shield her family from violence, a woman becomes a fierce freelance crime fighter in this mostly satisfying thriller.
