My thoughts
This series has been so good. All of the books have been great and this one is too. It is a bit of a touchy subject though.
I was cringing throughout a lot of this story. From all the murdered men to why they were murdered. While I do believe they all deserved it we can't just take justice in our own hands. Can we? If you were abused, either beat by a spouse or sexually assaulted by a predator, wouldn't you want to get even? If you could. If you could get away with it. I think most of us would. If we are honest. At least in the cases of the women in this book I can see it happening. While I don't condone violence I also believe in justice and in so many cases there is no justice. Especially when it comes to defending a child who has been violated. A slap on the wrist maybe. If that....
Annalisa and Nick are married. Expecting a baby. Annalisa is a PI now but things are slow as no one seems to want to hire a pregnant women to investigate anything. When her brother asks her to visit him in prison, where she put him, she is a little dismayed. But she goes. She listens to what he has to say. She meets with this guy named Joe. Joe who has spent thirteen years for the murder of a man and claims he is innocent. Annalisa takes the case. You will learn all about what he did or didn't do. You get to know Joe. You also get to know the women from Ruby's Place. A home for abused and battered women and children. You get to know them well.
This book is hard in places. It deals with abuse. It deals with child sexual abuse too. Very young girls. It's heartbreaking to know there are people in this crazy world who would do such horrendous things. To know that they do it and get away with it. This is the story of abused women and how Annalisa and Nick solve a serial killer case.
Thank you #StMartinsPress/MinotaurBooks for this ARC.
4.75 stars.
About
Detective Annalisa Vega hasn’t forgiven her brother for his role in a murder, and he hasn’t forgiven her for turning him in, so she’s surprised when he asks her to visit him in prison. Turns out, he has a possible case for her: one of his fellow inmates, Joe Green, may be innocent of the murder that landed him behind bars.
Joe is doing hard time for killing his ex-wife’s lawyer, but an anonymous letter sent to the prison warns that the eyewitness in Joe’s trial made up her story. With her private investigation business foundering, Annalisa is desperate enough to start poking around into Joe’s meager case. She immediately finds two problems: One, the eyewitness definitely lied about what she saw the night of the murder, and two, Annalisa’s husband Nick was the cop who arrested Joe in the first place.
Faced with correcting Nick’s mistakes, Annalisa digs deeper into Joe’s past and discovers he has two ex-wives with nothing good to say about him. The women may have orchestrated an elaborate frame to put Joe in prison, but one wife has completely disappeared since then. Did Joe somehow kill her? Or is he the real victim? Annalisa’s search for the truth tests the bounds of her marriage, her family, and her own sense of justice. Meanwhile, a devious killer keeps sending men to a watery death in the vastness of Lake Michigan. If Annalisa doesn’t figure out the truth about Joe soon, her husband might be next.
Joe is doing hard time for killing his ex-wife’s lawyer, but an anonymous letter sent to the prison warns that the eyewitness in Joe’s trial made up her story. With her private investigation business foundering, Annalisa is desperate enough to start poking around into Joe’s meager case. She immediately finds two problems: One, the eyewitness definitely lied about what she saw the night of the murder, and two, Annalisa’s husband Nick was the cop who arrested Joe in the first place.
Faced with correcting Nick’s mistakes, Annalisa digs deeper into Joe’s past and discovers he has two ex-wives with nothing good to say about him. The women may have orchestrated an elaborate frame to put Joe in prison, but one wife has completely disappeared since then. Did Joe somehow kill her? Or is he the real victim? Annalisa’s search for the truth tests the bounds of her marriage, her family, and her own sense of justice. Meanwhile, a devious killer keeps sending men to a watery death in the vastness of Lake Michigan. If Annalisa doesn’t figure out the truth about Joe soon, her husband might be next.
