Faced with an unpredictable killer and a lack of information, Valerie must use her brilliant mind to connect the dots—and fast. Her only hope of catching him is to work backwards, and to delve into his past.

Will she crack the killer’s code in time to save the next victim?

Or will she be too late?

With how the ending of book 2 was set up, I was fully convinced that the killer in this book would turn out to be Valerie’s dad – but it wasn’t! However, a lot of the theories I had in book 2 about Valerie’s mother and father did prove correct – so I can feel smug about that.

I’m honestly so tired, I read this as a distraction to keep me awake. It took just over an hour to read. The books of this series are rather short. I don’t know if all Blake Pierce’s books are like this or whether it is just this series.

Short books are fine, when they’re done right, and these ones are. To be able to fit such an adrenaline fuelled crime into under 200pages is a skill.

This book does a good job at weaving Valerie’s family mental history into the main plot. This book revolves around a killer who may or may not be linked to a recently closed psychiatric hospital. Many of the characters we are introduced to have varying mental capacities and I got the sense that the author at least had a working experience – whether a personal experience or from learning factual knowledge – about the types of people who are committed and why they are committed.

It was nice to see the representation done in a professional manner and not have it resort to portraying bad mental psychology with misinformation.

Valerie is not herself in this book, it’s very clear that she is one step from a complete breakdown as the book progresses. She doesn’t do a good job at hiding it from her colleagues or from herself. I think the character will have to face her issues in the next two books or the festering will start to break down her character and make her unlikable.

An added element that I wasn’t expecting was pairing Charlie and Will together more. It’s usually the three of them together or Valerie with either one of them. I enjoyed the men teaming up in this book. It allowed me to view their characters in a different way but also to see how far their observations went in terms of Valerie’s mental wellbeing.

Valerie’s headspace in this book reminded me a little of Winter’s headspace when hunting down The Preacher in the Winter FBI series by Mary Stone. It’s that level of irrationality mixed with the determination to catch the killer that makes the character completely blind to how they are acting and push the denial or truth so far down that it’s unreachable.

I’m still confused by Tom’s presence. Valerie had to go with Tom to meet his family for the first time – something that was discussed in book 2. To me, there is no point in my mind where Valerie and Tom are compatible as a couple. His character seems more like an added extra to make her character seem more rounded. He doesn’t give anything to the book. The way he is written mostly just makes him sound like a boring disappointed puppy and that’s not the vibe I get from Valerie, so their pairing always feels disjointed.

I have many expectations and theories about where the search for Valerie’s father is going to take her. At this point, I can see the story going down multiple roots, but there are only a few scenarios that would either be better for the character or better for the plot development. It will be interesting to see how much I have theorised correctly and how much turns out to be a pointless red herring.

I give this book: ⭐⭐⭐⭐