There are 13 books in this series and the first one is so good that it only took me a day to read it. I’m normally into fantasy romance but lately I’ve been into mystery books and this one got me hooked the second I got through the first chapter.

Decent enough FBI thriller. The prose is purple. Eggplant purple. Overdone to the point of self-parody. The author intends but fails to instill a sense of dread. She does this by writing paragraphs chock-full of adjectives intended to do that but are rendered inert by their quantity and density. Dread should creep up, should be quietly infecting rather than bludgeoned into being. There’s also an absurdity: an FBI Special Agent identifies himself as “Detective”. That is more improbable than the plot!

I would’ve given this 3 1/2 stars if I had had the option. It was a pretty OK read, some of the sentence wording felt a little strained, but all in all I liked it. If the rest of the series was free, I would definitely read it, but I don’t know if I will pay to read anymore of this specific series.

I will say, the overall story was good. The info to solve it wasn’t presented until the end, so nope - would not have been guessed until about 75% of the way through. I would give the story a high 3…maybe a very low 4 star. Now the actual writing, I would give that 1 star. The descriptors - I agree - were very cliche, at least about 40% of them. The remaining 60% were just over done. Because the author was trying to set the scene for every single moment of the book, I found my mind drifting, as there was NOTHING to let the reader imagine. Additionally, the descriptions got in the way of good story telling. For example, one paragraph started with part 1 of a thought, which was then followed with overly descriptive language, and then the paragraph ended with part 2 of the thought…by the time I got to part 2, I had completely forgotten what part one was and had to start over (and the 2 parts were just 2 parts of a single sentence - there was no reason to split the thought with meaningless descriptors). I remember towards the end (no worries…not a spoiler), there was a start of a chapter where the main character spent 1/2 the page trying to figure out where her flashlight was on her belt, only to spent the second half of the page stating why the flashlight did not provide ample light for her to see. Really? A page wasted on a flashlight? For most of the time, I found myself rereading pages because my mind wanted to bring in my own imagination, but the writer was way too much trying to control everything that I was reading, that I found my mind rebelling by drifting in my own little world, only to be lost in the story by the time I realized that I was no longer focused on the book. The descriptors caused me to think either the author was being paid by the word or is so oblivious to how people read that she thought that all of her many cliches enhanced the story. Unfortunately, while the overall story was good, I cannot see myself attempting to put myself through the horrendous storytelling again. (And I kind of want to find out what happens next, but the writing is not worth it.)

Underdeveloped, cliche, cringey. I thought I remembered an episode of Bones just like this, maybe I’m wrong.

I enjoyed reading this book and was eager to finish it. The writing was done well but felt a little too forced, as if the author was trying too hard to add big words and complex, abstract ideas. Overall I liked it but the investigation didn’t seem realistic to me.

I love it.

I saw the ending coming within the first few chapters. I was hoping there would be a twist but nope, it was exactly what I thought. The writing was weak and the characters one dimensional.

A very good scary story line. Might give you night mares! Tu dc

Honestly didn’t want to put it down. First book of the year for me and it was perfect.