"After reckless behavior costs NYPD detective Leigh O’Donnell her job and her marriage, three suspicious drownings in her hometown cause her to return to Copper Falls, Ohio in the hopes that solving a triple homicide just might get her life back on course. Leigh had stayed away from Copper Falls for decades, even though her trio of loving uncles and her brother still call it home. Because Copper Falls may seem idyllic, but something rotten lies at its core.
Headstrong and intuitive, Leigh isn’t afraid to face a killer. But she will have to do more than that to learn the truth about Copper Falls; she must unravel a complicated web of insidious secrets going back generations and truly confront what the town keeps hidden—as well as what she is hiding from herself.
Both a taut mystery and a deeply affecting examination of the stories and lies we build our lives upon, The Hunter signals the arrival of an unforgettable character and a major new writing talent."
What Worked for Me
The investigation elements were on point. Very logical progression with few 'summing up' parts that I can find annoying if they are too frequent. I think this book is a police procedural at its core with some more folklore/folk horror parts sprinkled on top and as such, the investigation needs to be spot on, which it completely was. While we know from the synopsis that Leigh lost her position on the NYPD, we don't find out until later in the read what the exact reason/situation was. However, I never found myself doubting her actual investigation skills - although she does go rogue a few times, like any good detective in a police procedural read.
We have a great cast of characters in a small town setting. I loved that we saw not only Leigh's family connections but also many other members of the community. The setting is a rural, small town, but Herrera does a great job of really showing a lot of different characters from all different walks of life in the same town. Also, since it is such a small town, we do run into the same characters over and over again which is great during an investigation because we are able to keep progressing the plot without having the main character constantly introducing herself or explaining the situation.
Leigh was a great main character to follow. Herrera does a good job with her character development throughout the book. I think we got the perfect balance of Leigh the person coming back to her hometown vs Leigh the investigator doing her job. Herrera does play around a little bit with the typical character of the detective we see in a lot of police procedural books.
What Didn't Work for Me
The ending sort of fell apart for me in a number of different ways - not anything too drastic, but I felt it could have been tweaked to fit the rest of the narrative better. First, the pacing was noticeably faster than the rest of the book. Now, most endings are faster paced as we ramp up the tension, reveals, and danger but this felt more like a 0-to-100 sort of deal. I would have liked either a more gradual ramp up or to slow down the ending events just a little. We get so many details, events, and reveals in the last 10% that I just wish we had more time to breathe. Also, I found myself missing a sort of 'summation' type of ending that we get in a lot of police procedurals where we tie up loose ends. There were a number of 'bad guys' that I was missing finding out what happened to them or what the outcome of the investigation was for those characters.
Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Group Putnam for the ARC. Publication date was January 10, 2023.
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