WHAT REMAINS by Wendy Walker

 

My thoughts

The title for this book was perfect. 

What Remains.. 

What does remain. After you take a life. Even when it's in self defense or when you think someone else's life is at risk. You have to pull that trigger and take down a suspect. His life is over. Your's is never the same. That is what happened to Detective Elise Sutton when she has to take out a young man who is firing a gun inside a department store. 

Elise is a wife, mother, partner. She's good at her job and has never had to fire her gun at anyone. This day is different. She had no other choice. She could not take a chance that people would not be harmed. Killed. She heard the gun fire and reacted as any detective would. She saved a man who was in the line of fire. Little did she know what a turn her life was about to take. 

This story is not about a shooting. Not exactly. It does start out with one but then it goes in another direction. It had me wondering and guessing at first. I thought Elise was a good cop. She only did what she had to do that day. When she finds the guy that she saved things go in direction I did not expect. Elise loves her family. But she sure put her life in danger following a stranger. She put her daughters, her husband, and her partner in danger. Maybe it was from the shock of her killing a young man who had mental problems. Maybe she lost her will to live. Maybe she thought she could do it all. She did what no one should have ever done. Lack of sleep? Lack of good judgement? 

This book is very good. It made me feel like I was in the the store. Looking under the overpass. Seeing the cabin in the woods. The descriptions are well done. From how the boy's parents were dealing to how the women who had been stalked and assaulted felt. It has feeling. How do you handle taking a life. Even in a case like this? It would have to be hard for the normal person. Even a well trained detective. The crimes talked about in this story are pretty bad but necessary for you to understand how a person can do some of the things done. Also knowing how some people try to get away with things. 

From the time I started this book to the very last word I waited for it to wow me as did this author's other books. It did not. But it was still good. It held my attention and had me guessing at things. I did find it hard to believe that a cop, a detective, would do the things Elise did. A mother and wife. She was very careless even though she thought she was doing the right thing and protecting her family. It was foolish. 

This was almost like reading two different stories in one for a while. Until they merged and you see how they play out. How the two become one. How things are woven together. I have to give it to this author she is great at doing that. This was no exception in that. 

Thank you #NetGalley, #WendyWalker, and #BlackstonePublishing, for this ARC. This is my own true thoughts about this book.

Four stars and I do recommend it. It's good. It just didn't wow me. 

Synopsis

She saved his life. Now he‘ll never let her go.

Detective Elise Sutton is drawn to cold cases. Each crime is a puzzle to solve, pulled from the past. Elise looks for cracks in the surface and has become an expert on how murderers slip up and give themselves away. She has dedicated her life to creating a sense of order, at work with her ex-marine partner; at home with her husband and two young daughters; and within, battling her own demons. Elise has everything under control, until one afternoon, when she walks into a department store and is forced to make a terrible choice: to save one life, she will have to take another.

Elise is hailed as a hero, but she doesn’t feel like one. Steeped in guilt, and on a leave of absence from work, she’s numb, even to her husband and daughters, until she connects with Wade Austin, the tall man whose life she saved. But Elise soon realizes that he isn’t who he says he is. In fact, Wade Austin isn’t even his real name. The tall man is a ghost, one who will set off a terrifying game of cat and mouse, threatening Elise and the people she loves most.