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Yikes, let’s NOT party like it’s 1999!
⏰ 𝐒𝐡𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲 𝐄𝐯𝐞𝐫: A mass murder takes place in a local ice cream shop: three teens are dead, one left alive. Flashback fifteen years ago, New Year’s Eve 1999 and the same crime occurred at a Blockbuster video. The survivor, Ella Monroe, is now an adolescent therapist called in to help with the event, forcing her to relive her trauma while helping the newest survivor. The police, the FBI, and a defense attorney all converge to find the killer (or killers), weaving through the past and the present, intersecting their stories into a riveting conclusion.
💡𝐓𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬: Love Agent Keller! Who doesn’t love a pregnant-with-twins totally bad-ass detective? And what I loved was that her pregnancy wasn’t a burden or problem to her job – she’s rocking the the whole agent extraordinaire role (hair flip it girl! 💁🏼♀️).
Ella Monroe, another great character, flawed but facing her fears, and Chris Ford – the dedicated defense lawyer with altruistic motives. All written adeptly, and just that perfect amount of reader attachment.
Many interesting characters and a few hmmms and ooooohs, questions and drama – all the elements that mixed together made a well-seasoned, perfectly-paced, minute-by-suspenseful-minute enjoyable mystery.
Admittedly, the killer(s) was/were kind of a “duh” in this one, but enough red herrings were thrown at me to make me second guess myself for a hot minute (just a minute, but it happened).
A few head-scratcher issues with some plausibility that held back my 5th star, though I’ll start by saying I was crazy busy reading this so not my normal “attention to detail” self. (Not a spoiler) – never understood why no one was that interested in Vince Whitaker as a suspect; he was the original suspect in the Blockbuster killings. He disappeared and yet, the police, FBI, all were like 🤷🏼♀️ “Meh, maybe it’s him but who knows? Oh well! Let’s look all these other places!” Say whaaaa? I’ve watched enough ID Channel to know that’s NOT right, 😆. But I clearly got over it 🤷🏼♀️ .
𝗔𝗹𝗹 𝗺𝘆 𝗿𝗲𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄𝘀 𝗮𝘃𝗮𝗶𝗹𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗮𝘁 𝗦𝗰𝗿𝗮𝗽𝗽𝘆𝗠𝗮𝗴𝘀.𝗰𝗼𝗺 𝗮𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗽𝘂𝗯𝗹𝗶𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻.
📚𝐆𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐞: Mystery/Police Procedural
😍𝐑𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨: Those ready for a quick well-paced character-driven read, able to suspend a little disbelief.
🙅♀️ 𝐍𝐨𝐭 𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨: If you can’t get past some of the ??? moments I was able to overlook.
Thank you to the author, NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press/Minotaur Books for my advanced copy in exchange for my always-honest review and for Agent Keller and my hope that she returns to my life in the future!
