The third will trent book. I had started reading mysteries because I love the way a good whodunnit comes together and I like a detective who has a bit of je ne se qua. The Will trent series of books does this with a solid character, trauma for backstory but not such that it’s his only characteristic, and a supporting cast of characters. This book in particular, introduces the transplant doctor slash M.E. who lost her husband in a previous series (side note: still my least favorite thing, when we have to deal with old series baggage). The new doctor’s abilities are basically used as a plot device to merge together the female detective’s pregnancy/diabetes story line, with the ‘survivor of the murder’ character. All in all, a fun experience doing that.
The mystery of the story is… weird. Karen in the three books i’ve now read, does this thing where you are shown the victim’s perspective, and we get two parallel first person views. This one’s victim didn’t even start as a victim, and more than anything, knew who her attacker was. The book uses her as essentially a time clock, which I feel didn’t work since we also were confronted with her dialogue, which… clashes with the pacing of the book.
My final note; the author really enjoys the scooby doo model of hiding who did it. In two of the three books I read, the killer was someone early on who had dialogue in the show. It works fine since the book does drift between whodunnit and howcatchem, but I imagine the trope would get old.