R. E. Bradshaw has created another amazing rollercoaster ride for the Bell family as they become entangled in multiple murder hunts.
Rainey Bell has been called in to work with the local police as a consultant to help identify the UNSUB who started as a lingerie thief but quickly moved up from rape to murder. Wracked by self-doubt after what she sees as a series of failures on her own part, Rainey is struggling not to second-guess her analysis.
When the body of a missing suspect from a previous case is found, it triggers flashback nightmares that threaten her family. Rainey needs to re-establish her control, banish her ghosts, and find her swagger. To do that she must face her demons and admit her deepest fears.
Meanwhile, the hunt for the escalating killer continues and Rainey gets drawn into several other investigations—all of which lead to a complex and challenging conclusion as she unravels each of the loosely connected plots.
This novel has all the usual suspects from the Bell clan: Katie and the triplets and Danny and her former team; even Molly and Mackie make brief appearances. But the focus of this story is very firmly Rainey and how she can use her skills, experience, and intelligence to pick at the minutiae. How the tiniest details can unravel the most intricate of cases and crack the most intelligent of malignant narcissists. While half sister Wendy is learning her trade, as a cop and a fledgling analyst, Rainey needs every shred of her fifteen years of experience to draw out an unlikely suspect.
As always Ms. Bradshaw’s books are complex, tracing the deepest depravity of human nature. Here we see sadists, murderers, pedophiles, and psychopaths, all drawn into the web of the Rainey Bell analysis. At the same time, we engage with the victims, survivors all—women and boys forever scarred by the violence perpetrated on them, but fighting to renormalize their lives as much as possible.
If you like crime/thriller/suspense with a large dose of romance and you haven’t read the Rainey Bell series, you have a delight in store. Well written, engaging, gut-wrenching, and emotional, R. E. Bradshaw’s series is fit for TV or film adaptation, and not to be missed.. I am going off to start the series over again—with every expectation of a delightful few days immersed in the world of an amazing family and the most challenging crime drama.