TW/CW: drug use, alcohol abuse, sexual assault (child and adult), suicide
I just want to say right at the top that I absolutely loved this book. This might be the perfect example of when I say I want gritty and depressing detective mystery thrillers. I thought every aspect was very well crafted and the way the whole story came together in the end was perfection. This is Ashkanani's first book and I cannot wait to read more from him.
The setting and atmosphere was immaculate. Cooper, Nebraska is the type of town that you drive past on the interstate and wonder if anyone actually lives there. Everyone who lives there seems to be miserable but yet there's also a drive to protect the town. Thomas is asked by just about everyone he meets what brought him to Cooper and it seems like everyone has a similar sort of story to his. No one chooses to be here, but the town has a way of attracting and keeping misfits and loners with no other place to go. I also loved the choice to have the story set in late November/early December when the cold and snow are starting to set in for the season. At one point Thomas goes for a walk with another character and he's told that the trees look beautiful in the fall, but now that all the leaves have fallen they just look like sticks. The landscape and the people are so worn down and depressing that it really feels like Thomas doesn't have any chance of working through his guilt and grief in this town.
The characters were fantastic. The story is told in first person so we get a slightly tinted view of the different characters. Almost everyone was an unlikable character in the best way and they really spanned the spectrum of reasons for being unlikable. They're all written in such a realistic way that you can really see how they ended up where they are in this story. There were so many moments of interpersonal conflict that were used to build characterization in a really clear way. It was also interesting to have Thomas being the new guy in town and basically starting this book on his first day. That way, we get introductions to the other characters and places that we'll see throughout the rest of the story. As much as I do really like police procedurals and detective thrillers, I can admit that their characters can sometimes be sort of bland or one-dimensional. In this case, I really found the characters to be really interesting and even with the characters we don't see on page often, the descriptions and small conversations were really used to their fullest to develop the characters even more. Also, since we are in 1st person POV for this story, when Thomas learns something new about another character, it is really interesting to see how that new information directly impacts his view and opinion on that other character.
The dual timeline and narration style choices were really interesting and worked well to keep the pacing of the story up. Most of the book is following Thomas and his investigation of the murdered woman in chronological order. However, we are alternating with the current day timeline which is written in a different style of telling a story. These current day chapters are pretty short but do give us a bit more information since that perspective has the hindsight of already living through the investigation timeline that we are reading through. The narrative tone reminded me a lot of those black and white detective noir movies where the narrator is mostly telling the story from start to finish but they'll come in with the occasional comment like "but I didn't know that at the time". I can see how some readers might find those types of interjections disruptive but I think it really helped keep me in the mindset so that when the present day chapters come in they aren't so disruptive. I also liked how there was a plot line in the present day chapters that I was also interested in and gave some more character insight. These shorter present day chapters did act as little rest points for the reader. The book is on the shorter side - 270 pages - and the main investigation plot line is pretty packed with information and plot/character developments so these other chapters are a needed breather but still kept me engaged in the current investigation thread since we know the two timelines are related.
The twist ending was a gutpunch that I hated in the best possible way. It is the type of ending where you think you know exactly where it is going and then it takes a sharp left turn and then you're left watching the resulting impact of that turn and shouting "no!" in your head but you can't stop turning pages. I have so many feelings about the ending and while it did hurt emotionally I think it was the perfect ending for this story. It was the type of reading experience where I'm rooting so hard for these characters to end up at least okay but, of course, every other aspect of the book is telling me that a happy ending for these morally questionable characters in this dreary town is basically impossible. I think the dual timeline works really well in this case because it does temper our expectations a bit but we still need to travel through the whole journey before we can catch up to the current day timeline. I also loved how the plot twist played with reader expectations and assumptions which is one of my favorite types of twists in mystery/thrillers. I did like how the different plot lines all came together in the end in a very satisfying way so the reader gets as much closure as possible.
Overall, I absolutely loved this book. The setting and atmosphere was perfectly dreary and matched how downtrodden many of our characters are. I loved the characters and how their relationships developed over the course of the story. The ending was heartbreaking but the twist at the end was completely appropriate for how the story played out.
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