This fast-paced mystery/thriller follows prison inmate Ethan Lockhart as he is released on a 48 hour furlough to attend his younger sister's funeral. His sister, Abby, disappeared weeks ago and is assumed dead, based on the amount of blood found at her apartment. Ethan initially is set on following the rules of his furlough and using the time to grieve. He's been in prison for 10 years so things on the outside are not the same as he remembers - his old loan shark boss Shark is now the head of a criminal empire and his sister's friend Whitney, once a skinny teen, is now a beautiful woman. However, as he finds out more details about Abby's case, Ethan soon finds himself investigating her death himself against the ticking clock. In order to find the truth in 48 hours where the cops and FBI had failed for weeks, Ethan will have to resort to his criminal ways that he previously swore off.
TW/CW: torture, drug use, voyeurism
The pacing in this book was phenomenal. The main plot takes place over the 48 hours that Ethan is out of prison and the first scene we have of him is the morning of his release. Ethan doesn't have the time to wait around and twiddle his thumbs while thinking about what actions to take. We do get some flashbacks of Ethan and Abby at various points over the previous years but those chapters are usually pretty short and give us some more depth of their relationship. Each chapter starts with the number of hours Ethan has left, which really emphasizes the time constraint he's working under. It was very reminiscent of the TV show 24 where they never really let you forget the amount of time left on the clock. The actual time wasn't mentioned that much in the story (it wasn't like Ethan was constantly counting down the hours to the reader) so the countdowns at the beginning of every chapter really felt like a natural way for Bourelle to get that information across to us. While Ethan might not be counting down the hours in his head, his concerns are written in such a way that we can feel his anxiety about the time he has left. There's one part where he's thinking about going to sleep but then says he doesn't want to waste 6 of his 48 hours on sleeping so he continues on with his investigation. The writing and action are so fast and just keep on rolling so quickly that Ethan (and thus the reader) have pretty much no time to rest. There are some short chapters that are following other characters that act as brief breathers away from Ethan's agenda, but some of them are literally just a couple of paragraphs so we aren't away for long enough for these to feel like any substantial breaks. Also, the fact that Ethan is involved with the criminal underworld also increases the tension and pacing because it is very much a matter of he has to do X before Y finds out because otherwise Z will happen. The plot points escalate pretty quickly and really sucked me into the book.
The characters and their development arcs are fantastic. Ethan and Abby's relationship was so well established and grounded that I cried twice while reading at certain points in the story. We only get 2 scenes with them together in the times before Ethan goes to jail but there are so many other details woven into the story that really show how close their relationship was. Bourelle did a fantastic job of working in character backstory in a very organic way. For example, since Ethan has been in jail for 10 years, when he's talking to people he used to know, it is a natural conversation to catch up on the neighborhood gossip and talk about who is doing what. We get a lot of information and backstory in the first 25% of the story but it never felt like an info-dump because of the surrounding circumstances. The side characters are also just the right amount of developed to make them feel real and not just caricatures. For example, we have the loan shark turned head of criminal enterprise who uses a strip club as a front for his other dealings. It would be so easy for him to be a generally flat 'bad guy' character. However, we get to see his complicated relationship with Ethan and some of his other quirks which really make him feel like an actual human and not just some faceless bad guy in the shadows. The same holds true for other characters in the book. All the characters we're introduced to are complex and interesting in their own ways and it really makes the character relationship and growth side of the book feel really grounded. This is really a revenge/redemption story and I think Ethan's personal character arc really exemplifies that line. While he is investigating his sister's murder, he is also grappling with his role in the events that preceded her death. This struggle makes his fall back into his criminal ways even more heartbreaking because he promised to give them up so that he could be the big brother his sister deserved.
The mystery elements and investigation were really well done and the clues were really intriguing. I really loved the premise of this book and I was expecting Ethan to come out of prison with a full plan in place on how he was going to find Abby's killer. However, since he initially was just going out to grieve and attend the funeral, I thought the events leading up to him finally deciding to investigate were really well done. The plot leaned into Ethan's criminal background when he needed some quick answers and it did so in a very specific way. Ethan's experiences both before and during his jail time all came into play and it was fascinating to see how certain clues would push him further along or push him to do things he didn't, initially, want to do. I really liked how Ethan being a member of this criminal world blurred the lines a bit during his investigation because there were so many other things going on at the same time that it wasn't always clear what was related to Abby and what wasn't. There were also a number of times where a lead would seemingly dry up but we'd get new information later and double back to that initial lead. This looping was intertwined with other clues so it never felt too convoluted or convenient and I found all the plot threads came together in the end. The ending is where I think this book might lose some people. It goes full summer action blockbuster and it is the one part where I had to suspend my disbelief the most. That being said, it did feel like an appropriate ramp up of the tension and investigation so I did really enjoy where it went and I think it made sense plot-wise even if it wasn't entirely realistic. This story reminded me a lot of the movie Shot Caller which I also really enjoyed.
Overall, this was a fantastically paced and plotted read that I devoured in an afternoon. It was pretty much 0 to 100 in just a few chapters and I really enjoyed the character development we got interspersed with the action.
Thanks to NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for the ARC
Expected publication date is December 7, 2021
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