Next to Die by TJ Brearton

Is someone targeting case workers from the Department of Social Services?

Setting -- Lake Haven in the Adirondacks. A DSS worker is stabbed to death in her car outside the office after hours one night. Harriet Fogarty wasn't scheduled to be working that evening, so perhaps Bobbi Noelle, who was meant to be on duty but was home sick, was the intended victim? Things in the small town heat up pretty quickly as Detectives Mike Nelson from the New York State Police and Detective Lena Overton with the Lake Haven Police start to work the case.

But there is a lot more going on in Lake Haven. Suspects are identified and the investigation painstakingly plods along as more questions are raised than answers can be found. There are parallel plots and it is all quite complex. Red herrings abound, but most astute readers will figure out where this is going though it takes a long while to get there. There are so many characters that sometimes the names all became a jumble and they were all very superficially constructed. The main character of Bobbi narrates part of the story as it alternates between her and Detective Mike. There's also a romantic element for both of those two (not with each other) that really didn't add anything to the forward movement of the plot.

This works find as a standalone though I've read others in the series. I enjoyed it but it seemed like it took a lot of pages to get to the denouement and the final showdown when all was revealed. I'll definitely read more by this author.

Thank you to NetGalley and Bookouture for this e-book ARC to read and review.