TW/CW: adult/minor relationship, infidelity, domestic violence, pregnancy
Finlay broke out in 2021 with his thriller Every Last Fear and the similarities between that book and this one are hard to ignore. Besides following the same FBI Agent Sarah Keller, there are a lot of the same tropes and character types but I think they are used much more effectively in this book than in Every Last Fear. I don't mind at all when authors re-use tropes in multiple books but I do think it makes it really easy to compare/contrast the two works. In this case, I was glad to see that Finlay re-balanced some of the other elements in the story which gives the two books a completely different feel even if they have a lot of the same plot elements. I'll go into detail in the later points, but basically this book gave me more of the elements I wanted out of Every Last Fear (such as heavier on the FBI investigation and more balanced multi-POV choices) and got rid of the, in my opinion, weaker elements. [my review of Every Last Fear is linked here]
I was so happy to see Agent Keller back in this book. I'm not sure if Finlay is planning on making this a series following the FBI agent but she was my favorite character in Every Last Fear so I was excited to see her return. Another review I read made a comment that they're happy to see a female FBI agent without a super tragic or angsty backstory and as much as I like my haggard and damaged detectives, it was really nice have the focus be more on the mystery. She's 8 months pregnant at the beginning of the book and every time it was mentioned, the movie Fargo kept popping up in my head. I think the part I liked the most about Agent Keller's character is that she is so steadfast and good at her job that she acts as almost a safe point for the reader. The investigation and other POVs are a little chaotic but when we come back to Agent Keller's POV it almost acts as a bit of a resting point in the story while we're driving with her to interview a witness/suspect/whoever. I think she acts as a great outsider perspective for these two crimes in this small town where it seems everyone is connected in one way or another.
I really enjoyed the POV choices in this book and found them equally interesting. I love a good multi-POV book but only if each of the plot lines have something interesting about them (which was one of my main issues with Every Last Fear). In this case, it was clear that each of the POV characters had a connection to the current investigation (and thus would become important to the main mystery thread at some point) but they also had their own interesting, personal journeys. There were a couple times when one POV would end on a bit of cliffhanger or juicy tidbit of information and I wanted to find out what happened next but then the next chapter would be a new POV. This is a pretty common tactic with any book but I think when it comes to multi-POV books it can be really obvious and some readers might not like it very much at all. Initially, the three main POV characters and their plot lines are very separate but as the investigation ramps up they do entwine. I really enjoy once they start crossing over because it lets us see these other characters from a new perspective. I also liked how we are mostly set in the current day investigation with the occasional flashback scene to 1999. I think it worked really well because none of our present day characters know what happened back in 1999 (which is sort of the whole point of the plot) and as much as I love a good dual-timeline, I don't think it would have worked well in this case.
The one complaint (but it really isn't an actual complaint) is how bittersweet the ending is. We get two big reveals in the last 10% of the book that just made me so sad but then I found the epilogue to be so uplifting. The fact that Finlay made me cry - twice! - in what is, essentially, a police procedural I think really says a lot about how immersive his writing and characters are. It is the type of ending for a mystery where you keep flipping pages and think to yourself "no, no, no, that can't be real" and you're hoping for another twist to the twist but it never comes. In regards to the plot-side of the ending, I think Finlay does a really great job of layering on the information and reveals so they build on each other and raise the tension even more. The actual reveal, for me, wasn't anything off the wall but it was really well built up and I personally didn't guess any of the details about the ending correctly.
I really enjoy Finlay's writing style and how immersive and page-turning it is. He has a very readable style that works so well with his more commercially high-concept plots. There aren't many seams in the writing so once I was immersed, I was in all the way. I know writing styles are very subjective and each reader will have their own preferences. The best way I can describe it is that the style is invisible when I'm reading. I don't get tripped up over sentence structure or word choice. There aren't long paragraphs of description or meandering philosophical thoughts. And there isn't anything wrong with styles that do include those - I like a good flowery prose every now and then. I also know and fully acknowledge the fact that it takes a lot of work for the writing to become 'invisible'. But I think for a commercial mystery/thriller like this, the less complicated prose makes it so compulsively easy to read. The kind of writing that makes you go 'just one more chapter' over and over again.
Overall, this was pretty much my perfect high-concept commercial mystery/thriller. I got more of everything I wanted from Finlay's first book and it all worked really well for me. I don't think the actual plot is anything extraordinarily new and exciting but the investigation, characters, and writing style all came together really well to make this a very immersive read.
Thanks NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC
Expected publication date is March 1, 2022
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