General Fiction (Adult) | Mystery & Thrillers
by Angela Marsons
Description
While Jamie’s cold, lifeless body lay in the morgue, Detective Kim Stone stared at the empty board in the incident room and felt her anger boil. Why were there no photos, details, or lines of enquiry?
When a nineteen-year-old boy, Jamie Mills, is found hanging from a tree in a local park, his death is ruled a suicide. Detective Kim Stone’s instincts tell her something isn’t right – but it’s not her investigation and her temporary replacement is too busy waiting for the next big case to be asking the right questions.
Why would a seemingly healthy boy choose to end his life?
Why does his mother show no sign of emotional distress at the loss of her son?
Still mending her broken mind and body from her last harrowing case, Kim is supposed to be easing back into work gently. But then she finds a crucial, overlooked detail: Jamie had a recent injury that would have made it impossible for him to climb the tree. He must have been murdered.
Quickly taking back charge of her team and the case, Kim visits Jamie’s parents and is shocked to hear that they had sent him to a clinic to ‘cure’ him of his sexuality. According to his mother, Jamie was introverted and prone to mood swings. Yet his friend speaks of a vibrant, outgoing boy.
The clues to smashing open this disturbing case lie behind the old Victorian walls of the clinic, run by the Gardner family. They claim that patients come of their own accord and are free to leave at any time. But why are those that attended the clinic so afraid to speak of what happens there? And where did the faded restraint marks identified on Jamie’s wrists come from?
Then the body of a young woman is found dead by suffocation and Kim makes two chilling discoveries. The victim spent time at the clinic too, and her death was also staged to look like a suicide.
Scarred from an ordeal that nearly took her life, is Kim strong enough to stop a terrifying killer from silencing the clinic’s previous patients one by one?
4 STARS
To be honest, when it comes to rating this book I had a bit of difficulty. I had mixed feelings on this one. Some parts I liked but others not so much. At times it seemed get deeper into the "clinic doings" and it often made the story drag for me. Although the author did do her research when it came to this topic, the same information was also repeated a lot from different sources too.
There was a whole lot of people in this story. It took me a while to find my balance in this story as a first time reader. Later someone said that it would be best if prior books be read and I totally agree that would have helped. That said, it really was a well written story. With interesting people even starting with the doofus who was left in charge of Kim's unit. Reminds of a phrase I think I heard in a movie, "you couldn't find your rear end with a flashlight and both hands." His incompetence was off the charts and dangerous too.
Kim was definitely a complex woman with scars that didn't just start with her most savage beating from Symes. Her emotional scars go WAY back like from when she was 6 years old. With all of that said, I really really liked her.
All in all, this was an emotional, active, twisty, surprising story with another great twisted surprise at the end.
So, I have to say that I liked the story with some reservations.
“I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.”
(NETGALLEY)
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