This crime thriller, the 5th in the DI Natalie Ward series, begins like most others in this genre. Two sisters go to a free open-air concert and one of them goes missing only to be found, strangled to death, under an arbor swathed with roses. When Natalie and her team arrive, she's struck by the notion that the position of the body and the presence of the petals might indicate a connection to a previous case that she worked years ago. That killer, however, died in prison. Natalie and her colleagues are going to work this as they do every case -- meticulously and thoroughly. They aren't making much progress interviewing everyone who knew the dead teenager when two other girls, 13-year-old twins Erin and Ivy Westmore, disappear from the tent in their backyard where they'd been camping overnight. Now Natalie is convinced that there's a copycat killer on the loose or that the police had convicted the wrong man in the 2014 cases. Because the team is down a man as DS Murray Anderson is off on a vacation to Australia, the new boss brings in DS John Briggs - the detective who Natalie had worked with on the original Blossom Twins case. Although they don't see eye to eye, they are pursuing all the leads, butting heads, and getting nowhere. Can they find this killer before he strikes again? NO SPOILERS.
I thought I had this one worked out -- until I most certainly didn't. I appreciate the courage it took for Carol Wyer to write this ending as it definitely shifted up my rating for this novel. The suspense at the end was quite crazy and made the slow slog through the very detailed police procedural segments well worth waiting for. Although I'll admit that I don't really like Natalie very much, let's face it -- she's not much of a presence as a mom -- but she definitely does love her job and she's very good at it. Her personal life no longer interests me (same old same) but I am very interested to see what will happen in the next installment given the changes in store. The writing is good, the setting very interesting, and the descriptions are so vivid that you almost feel as if you are right there. Lots of characters that I'd like to get to know better.
Thank you to NetGalley and Bookouture for this e-book ARC to read, review and recommend. I've been along for the ride having read all of the books in this series and I plan to stick around to see where Carol Wyer is taking us next.
This is the 5th in the series and I do believe they should be read from the beginning, in order.
Genre - crime fiction, police procedural
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