Summary
Men are dying in the Pacific Northwest, their bodies found near churches, charities, and counseling centers—each with valentine candy hearts shoved down their throats. They’re good men with families and community ties—or so they seem until Laurel Snow and her team begin to investigate. Then the case takes a shockingly personal turn when the father she’s never met, a former pastor, turns up among the dead.
Now, besides solving her father’s murder, Laurel is on the hunt to discover the truth of his past. Complicating things is Laurel’s troubled half-sister, Abigail, a brilliant sociopath determined to prove that they’ve both inherited their father’s malignant narcissism.
Assisting Laurel is Washington Fish and Wildlife Captain Huck Rivers, a dangerous loner whose reliance on gut instinct puts him at odds with Laurel’s coolly analytic approach. But the choice may be moot when the killer hones in on Huck’s own dark secrets—putting him and Laurel squarely in the crosshairs.
Review
Once more, Laurel Snow has work to do. Besides a new killer stabbing men and stuffing their mouth with Valentine candies, she has to deal with her psychopath sister, and the return of the prodigal father, while her relationship with Huck takes a new turn.
First of all, it’s barely a standalone. Sure, the author offers many details to understand what happened in the previous books in the series, but you can’t get the full scope of the side plots about Abigail, Jason, Zello, or even Rachel, without reading them. I loved the continuity, and the fact that Laurel’s previous cases have such an impact on her life, but it implies that the books should be all read, and in order.
To be honest, after what happened in the previous book, I was a bit frustrated that the story between Laurel and her sister didn’t progress much. We learn some new important details about Abigail and how her mind works, but the competition/rivalry between the sisters is at a standstill. Even the arrival of their father doesn’t move the plot a lot. Except now Laurel seems to have a new enemy.
As for the serial killer itself, the author cleverly puts red herrings along the way, and the revelation was a big surprise. Some of those details seemed a bit convenient. All in all, there are a lot of weird coincidences in this book. That’s what suspension of disbelief is for, I suppose. And in the end, it works well anyway.
The author manages a few intense actions scenes, keeping a good pace between scenes of Laurel answering her phone–sometimes it looked like a tag game–and investigation scenes.
And some sexy scenes. Laurel and Huck definitely leveled up. They’re getting serious and I loved that. The love story is always in the background, with characters thinking about it, talking about it, and acting on it. What I like the most is that they’re both aware that they’re different, that they may want different things, but they are willing to make it work–maybe not knowing how to do it yet. They’re equal in this relationship in many ways.
I felt the murders were less gruesome than in the previous books, but that doesn’t mean they were pretty. And this time, men were the victims. Some parts of the investigation were assumed by members of Laurel’s team, meaning we don’t read about every little detail, and that was an interesting change–and meaningful for the character, as she’s slowly becoming more of a leader and less of a loner.
I wonder what will happen in the next book, can’t wait.
Quickie
- Series: Laurel Snow #3 (can be read as a standalone)
- Hashtags: #romantic suspense #thriller #neurodivergent #serial killer #mountain man
- Triggers: gruesome murders with graphic depictions, cheating, psychological manipulation
- Main couple: Laurel Snow & Huck Rivers
- Hotness: 3/5
- Romance: 4/5
- + lots of red herrings, it keeps you hooked
- – sometimes, I doubted Laurel was as smart as she said
Stalker mode
You can subscribe to Rebecca Zanetti’s newsletter on her website.
You can also follow her on Facebook.
Vero Ticker 