2 stars
I was so disappointed in this book. I typed love Victor Method but this book is just a big miss.

Second in a series with the same primary characters, the ex-wife and daughter of an imprisoned serial killer, CRIMSON LAKE ROAD, continues their story in Las Vegas. Author Victor Methos does an excellent job of creating unusual characters and placing them in situations that seem fraught with constant ethical dilemmas. The story itself is tight and fast-moving, difficult to put down and easy to read in one sitting. Are these tales believable? Are any thrillers meant to be believable or just absolutely entertaining? This book and its predecessor fall in the entertainment category: fast to read and easy to enjoy. I’m looking forward to the next installment. I received my copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

i really enjoyed reading this book, the characters were great and I really enjoyed reading this mystery novel. I look forward to more from the author and series.

Book Review: Crimson Lake Road (Desert Plains #2) by Victor Methos
(Published by Thomas & Mercer on February 9, 2021)

4.5 Stars.

After the incarceration of her ex-husband, convicted serial killer and prodigious artist Edward Cal (in Desert Plains Book 1), Jessica Yardley, Assistant US Attorney for the District of Nevada, fed up and burnt out, decides to call it quits and move on out of Sin City to the outskirts as a solo practitioner.

Her notice period ends and she fortuitously gets replaced at trial prep right before her final case, multiple murder and aggravated assault charges against the "Crimson Lake Executioner", alleged perpetrator of gruesome deaths, styled to mimic tortured snuff art attributed to a certain painter - Sarpong.

But the Federal case gets botched to the department's embarrassment by her overconfident rookie replacement who was too cocky to bother with a proper trial prep hand-over. The trial gets ruled out of Federal jurisdiction and relegated back to State.

Yardley then gets lured by the Nevada State AG to carry the trial to judgment on a single case basis in Clark County.

Art imitates life. In the meantime, Yardley gets close to one of the victims, incidentally an aficionado of disturbed artists - Caravaggio, Cellini, Banksy (sic), and, coincidently as it happens, Edward Cal, Yardley's own ex-.

Then the former US Asst. AG finds herself as a prime candidate for her own gruesome ordeal....

"Every legal novel I've written is based on a case I actually had." - Author Victor Methos

Beyond plot creativity and great writing, courtroom dramas in Victor Methos' books have a feel of authenticity - scholarly and educational, with the precise applications of US Federal and State statutes apropos to each case that can only be attributed to the author's knowledge and experience forged over a hundred courtroom battles as a criminal and civil rights defense attorney as well as a prosecutor early in his career.

Of special note is Dylan Aster, adversary to Yardley and the State, the pro-bono public defender and courtroom maestro reminiscent of the author's Brigham Theodore, "The Neon Lawyer". - Or is the reader perhaps treated to a glimpse of Methos portraying himself?!

A must-read for legal thriller fans!

Review based on an ARC from Thomas & Mercer and NetGalley.

I enjoyed this one overall but felt I should have enjoyed it more. It was nearly a great read but too many oddities in it for me to rate it higher.

Jessica Yardley is a prosecutor who plans to retire early. The cases have taken their toll on her and she wants out. She has already arranged to move away from Las Vegas to a small town a couple of hours away where she will set up a small one woman law firm to practice everyday law.

She gets drawn into one last case in her last weeks in the job. A killer is on the loose. Dubbed The Executioner, a woman is found mutilated and murdered in a cabin in Crimson Lake Road with a painting beside her. It’s from a series of disturbing paintings from an artist and the killer has re-enacted the scene in the painting with the murder.

When Jessica gets called to a second apparent murder, the scene set again to replicate one of the paintings, this time the second in the series, Jessica realises there is a serial killer on the loose who won’t stop until the full series of paintings have been re-enacted.

When the second victim survives the attack, Jessica visits her in hospital to try and gain as much information about the attack as possible. She continues to follow up with her after her release and the two strike up an immediate friendship, but when Jessica suspects the second victims boyfriend may be the killer, their friendship will be tested.

There are other suspects, including a child abuser who’s own daughter is reported missing. As Jessica gets more and more drawn in, can she solve who the killer is or will she become the next victim?

This one started off really well. Quite a disturbing opening and as the chapters unfold we get to know Jessica and her back story(this is book 2 in the series). We learn of her past, married to an artist who turned out to be a serial killer and bringing up a teenage daughter on her own. Tara is seventeen and a a bit of a genius. Their past is pretty brutal and those opening chapters had me really yearning to read the first book as the back story sounded so interesting. I was all in from the off.

However, around a quarter of the way through things started getting a bit clunky for me. An improbable friendship blossoms, with alarm bells ringing in my head as a not so subtle plot device. It knocked the stuffing out of the narrative for me.

The book also goes off on some tangents and side stories that don’t really add anything to the book. It felt like a lot of parts were included for no particular purpose and the flow of the story and the book suffered because of it. It also felt like the book didn’t know what it wanted to be, flip flopping from thriller to court room drama to whodunnit to......well, you get the point.

Jessica also was a very inconsistent character. A very strong and well written character overall with enough weight to carry a novel but, she made some ridiculous decisions that took you totally out of the book. Totally unbelievable. The ending I didn’t care for much either.

Despite these criticisms, I did enjoy the book overall. I’m not sure if it’s because it was pretty good or I thought I enjoyed it more than I did, due to the opening chapters and initial storyline.

This could easily have been a four or five star review for me but the inconsistent storyline and characters, along with some muddled and unnecessary side stories have this at three stars.

Enjoyable overall but you are left with the feeling that it could have been so much more.

Many thanks to Netgalley, Thomas & Mercer and Victor Methos for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Crimson Lake Road, by Victor Methos, is a solid crime thriller. While apparently it is the second book in a series with recurring characters, it stands on its own and, while I did not read the first book, I had no problem following this story. The central character, Jessica Yardley, is believable as a world-weary US attorney who is trying to retire from her job and its proximity to evil people who commit horrible crimes. She agrees to stay on to help investigate and bring to trial one last case, which involves a sadistic serial killer.

I like the settings, Las Vegas and rural Nevada. The characters are nicely fleshed out, especially Jessica and her super-smart teenage daughter Tara. The descriptions of the victims are graphic and unpleasant, but those are a small part of this novel. The courtroom drama in the second half of the book is gripping and kept me well-engaged and eager to get to the denouement.

I would recommend this writer’s books to fans of crime and legal thrillers.
Thank you to NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I was drawn to this, a genre I don't usually choose, because the descriptor intimated the element of art. This was a plot point early on, but it didn't overcome the book's deficiencies. I found it amateurish in approach and gratuitously gory, and since I do not read thrillers involving harm against children and was misled re the content, gave up.

This was such a good sequel to A Killer’s Wife. I did not see the twists coming and I love the deeper look into the daughter’s life. I am already wishing for the next installment in this series!

Having read and enjoyed several of this author’s books I am disappointed in this book.

Almost every character in the story has suffered trauma or had a close relative murdered. The lead prosecutor Jessica’s ex-husband is in jail for serial killings, the lead detective has had a traumatic childhood in foster homes, another detective is hiding something from his past and several other characters were abused as children. About the only character who has had a normal upbringing and has not suffered trauma is Jessica’s replacement DA who is portrayed as a sneering know all. The result is that it is not a pleasant read.

The disclosures at the end are convoluted but I guessed the main one early on because too many clues were dropped by the author and there was a short list of people who could be in contention. Applying the Agatha Christie criteria of the least obvious and the villain becomes obvious.

I was considering awarding the book three stars but the standard of writing is good and there are very few awkward sentences, so I award it four stars.

This will be part review and part storycraft (including consistency) and will contain spoilers. It also describes some of the gore in it. The book also deals in child abuse. If you want to read this book, or you're not a fan of child in danger books, you may want to skip this review. It's also fairly long.







Good? Good.

Crimson Lake Road is listed as "Desert Plains, #2" on Goodreads. As is the case in many of my reviews, I'm parachuting into a series after the characters have been established. It isn't really apparent in this book that it's #2 in a series on the cover (in fact, it doesn't mention it at all) and past events aren't really brought up in terms of these characters working together as a group, so it can and does work as a standalone, although reading the first will certainly inform the second.

The book opens with a horrific scene: a woman in a tunic on a kitchen table, her head obscured by bloody gauze. FBI agent Cason Baldwin and Detective Lucas Garrett (and everyone else in the entry team) believe the woman is dead. Until she start flailing around.

We then cut to a bar, where (super smart) Jessica Yardley, currently working for the US Attorney's office is telling Baldwin she's leaving the office and moving somewhere that she doesn't have to see the terrible things she (and he) have seen. She agrees with her boss to work on this particular case and bring New Guy (Kyle? Don't recall, he's annoying and a cartoony frat boy know-it-all who has zero character development despite the fact he will be working this case) up to speed and get him going on it. New Guy's schtick is having a sucker in his mouth all the time - even in court, and having to have the judge to tell him to ditch it. Even a frat boy would know this is not acceptable, come on.

Yardley goes to see the victim, whom they believe is the second victim of a killer using a series of four paintings as inspiration. The first, a woman named Kathy Pharr, did not survive. Yardley befriends woman #2, Angela River ("Call me Angie."), telling herself there is no reason they can't be friends. OK, I'll push my disbelief that a prosecutor - even one leaving - would get emotionally involved with the victim of an open case in this way, even if Yardley seems desperate for friends and finds River a willing ear. The way things work out, however, it does seem that Yardley makes pretty bad choices about the people she wants to be in her life.

Meanwhile, everyone is trying to determine who the killer is, and delving into Pharr's life to see if there are connections between her and River. There don't seem to be any, but they keep digging, reinterviewing everyone. There's an intimation that River's fiancee, Dr. Michael Zachary could be the killer/attacker, based on a profile developed by the FBI. The BAU, in fact (who develop such profiles) is on the verge of being shut down, which brings some tension into Baldwin's life, since that's his department.

We get some references to Yardley's teenaged daughter Tara, and Yardley tells her new bestie that she was once married to a man who was a serial killer (this is apparently what the first book is about) and had a relationship with another bad guy. Tara is described as some kind of math savant and super smart, and we find out that she has been secretly visiting her (super smart and super manipulative) father on death row, while telling her mother she's working in the robotics lab at the university.

Now, I'll be the first to admit I love a good, morally grey character. I'll even root for bad guys if they're doing good things. But I want consistency. Barring some catastrophic event, for instance, an FBI agent isn't going to suddenly rob a bank. Yardley is conscientious and wants bad guys found and punished for their wrongdoings.

That's why it bothered me that when Tara and a friend are at River's house, and River leaves, Tara calls Yardley, knowing Yardley wants to snoop around a bit. When Tara asks her "That's what you wanted, right?", this should have been a sign to Yardley to rethink herself. Instead, she does go snooping, and in doing so, finds a garage with gauze, etc., that indicate Dr Zachary could be their man, and calls Baldwin to get a judge to sign a warrant to search Rover and Zachary's outbuildings. Baldwin does write the warrant but does not get a chance to get it under a judge's pen, so Yardley takes it, thin as it is, and gets it signed. This should have been another sign to Yardley. But it isn't.

When the warrant is served, River naturally accuses Yardley of getting close to her solely for the purposes of arresting Zachary, and storms off - rightly so, in my opinion. But, River gets over it, and they're again friends as the book moves suddenly to the viewpoint of a defense attorney, previously not introduced to the reader, by the name of Dylan Aster. If you asked me to point to the character I'd be most interested in reading a book about, it would be Aster.

It seemed to me that Methos was having much more fun writing the parts with Aster - from describing his antics in getting himself held in contempt during a trial in front of a particular judge so that judge would likely have to recuse himself from any case Aster was involved with, to the play he made to have himself be able to be present while the grand jury was seated for Zachary's indictment. Aster was irrepressible, and those scenes both lightened he mood during the middle of the book, but also helped carry the middle along. Often, the "sagging middle" is quite a problem for writer and reader alike, but Methos has avoided that here for the most part.

Kathy Pharr's daughter, Harmony, goes missing. Her father Tucker, recently released from prison after being convicted of snatching and murdering a girl about Harmony's age, has seen nothing, heard nothing, and is generally unhelpful. He also talks like someone from an Appalachian holler. I'm supposing this is because we're told he has something like a 5th grade education, and is not terribly bright, so of course he'd speak poor English and have a southern accent, living there in Nevada. Baldwin finds the girl's necklace and her phone, but not the girl herself. Since Zachary was remanded without bail, so could not have taken the girl himself, the group posits that perhaps Zachary and Tucker were working together. An independent crime reporter has been hovering at the edges of the investigation, and Yardley encounters him while she and Baldwin are working a piece of the case, interviewing a drug addict who claims to have seen Harmony. She thinks it's interesting that he was nearby, but then thinks nothing more of it.

Meanwhile, in a subplot involving Tara, she is doing some work for her imprisoned father, selling his artwork. She changes her appearance and goes to some very sketchy warehouses to meet some equally sketchy bad dudes. This does not strike me as the actions of a supposed very smart person, and although Tara is described as a "savant", she's not someone who cannot function in society. She knows it's dangerous, she knows her father is dangerous, yet she tells her mother nothing of all this (and Yardley doesn't ask, even though a 17 year old seems to be at a college lab at all hours, every day).

The drug addict is then found hanging by his intestines in a house at Crimson Lake Road. This scene is not described in details, but the original painting that inspired it was. If you've seen the movie Hannibal (the film, with Anthony Perkins and Julianne Moore), the scene where Hannibal kills Inspector Pazzi will give you a good idea of it.

The group finally begins to realize that Zachary is not guilty, and looks even more closely at the original incident for which Tucker went to prison, which occurred in another town. Baldwin is close behind her, but Yardley is abducted before he arrives. When she comes to, she realizes she's in a basement, and Tucker is strapped to a table, naked. The character who snatched her - who we guessed was the crime reporter - leaves the basement for a minute, and Yardley opens the small window to get out, but is unable to do so before their captor returns, and quickly hides in a closet. Their captor goes charging out to chase down Yardley, who manages to get out of the house for real and begins running. The bad guy is almost on her when Baldwin arrives on..I mean in...his Mustang to clip the bad guy and then cuff him.

Yardley's fine, for the most part, and Tucker has been rescued, but is under arrest, as they've discovered Tucker used to live on Crimson Lake Road, and his family had other land there back in the day. While Tucker is lying in a hospital bed, cuffed to the rail, a nurse comes in, supposedly to give him pain meds, but really to inject him with something that will paralyze his muscles but will keep his heart and brain working while she slices and dices him to remove all his organs like the fourth painting.

We've already guessed that River is involved in these killings. When Yardley goes to River's house, she sees that River has left in a hurry. Good thing they were BFFs, and River told Yardley where she'd go if she left the area. Yarley calls San Pedro to let them know there's a fugitive in their area. She goes herself, finds Sue Ellen/Angie, who has Harmony with her. Yardley tells River she's decided not to leave the US Attorney's office after all, and that she's going to move to the crimes against children section. Baldwin, for his part, has also told his boss he wants to move to the crimes against child department, which I suppose means the series will continue with these two working together in books detailing the number of ways people can be horrible to kids. I'm not squeamish, and I know these things happen, but I know I'll also pick something else to read if it's a choice between that and something like this, even if the bulk of the horrible acts of violence are left offscreen.

Remember consistencies? It was VERY difficult for me to believe that Yardley would just let River walk away - and take Harmony with her, even though I understood River's motives. But she does just that, and I had been rooting for her to find her integrity again. Alas, I was disappointed. Hopefully, in the next book, Yardley will reflect on her choice to get too cozy with the victim of a case.

Four stars for a good premise for the murders and not just the investigation, but the way some investigators stop looking at things closely once they think they have the perp - looking at you, New Guy. Two stars for inconsistency and inaction/blind eye in Yardley. We'll go with the middle and give it three stars out of five. Worth a read if you're not too squeamish.

Thanks to Thomas & Mercer and NetGalley for the review copy.

I enjoyed this suspenseful thriller. This is my first book by this author. I really enjoyed how it pulled me in right from the beginning. I also enjoyed how the author's attention to detail made the story more enjoyable to read as well as made me feel as if I was right there with them. I had no issues connecting with the characters as they brought the story to life. This is a story about Jessica. She is retiring but decides to take on one last case. What she doesnt realize not only will be her last but it could also mean her life. I highly recommend reading this book to see what happens next with Jessica. I enjoyed her character as well, she really made the story for me.

Thanks to NetGalley for an advanced copy.
I do not think that this is the best book written by this author. Initially it was a little dull to get in to the book.

Yardley, is a prosecutor who cannot resist one last case before retirement. She consult’s with her ex husband to get inside the mind of a murderer who is art obsessed. Some of the script is a little unbelievable. Overall an ok read though parts of the book were tedious.

Guys, I love a thriller. Legal thrillers? Yes, even more love for those. This is my first Methos book and when I started it, I didn’t realize it was number two in a series. I wish I’d known that before beginning because I enjoy reading a series in order. That said, it did okay as a standalone; although, some things make more sense now knowing there was a book before this one.

Jessica Yardley is a federal prosecutor who gets involved in one last case before retiring and moving far, far away. Her past has earned her the right to choose a much different kind of life and she’s ready for it. When this last case comes to her attention, she wants to help prepare her replacement before boarding her plane to a new life, but in doing so, gets pulled into a serial murder investigation.

Yardley is smart woman and I like the way she handles herself. However, and because of her intelligence and integrity, I found it difficult to believe she would befriend a victim in the case she’s putting together for prosecution. This is a major plot point that didn’t work for me. I just didn’t believe it would happen. Don’t get me wrong–I am well aware of professionals that cross-lines on a daily basis. Unethical practices are overlooked all too often. I just didn’t want her to be one who would participate. She says there are no legal rules against being friends with a victim, but I think it’s still out of character for her to put herself in that position. Yeah, she’s lonely. I get it. But she’s also getting ready to move and start a new life. It doesn’t fit.

Tara, Yardley’s daughter is a bold character. Without giving away too much of the plot, she’s a mix of highly-intelligent and immature. She’s a savant and could, in later books, be an integral part of an investigative team with her knowledge and skills. Right now, though, she’s making some ridiculous choices. Not only that, but Yardley doesn’t step in when she should and that bothered me.

Overall, the story is good. I can’t help but think that it’s a second or third draft that an editor isn’t quite done with. For example, in the first chapter a sheriff and FBI agent are at a crime scene. Methos writes, “That he barely glanced at the body was no surprise–Baldwin had long known Garrett, a former army drill instructor and now a veteran homicide detective with the Clark County Sheriff’s Office, to be unresponsive to horrific crime scenes.” Okay, not bad, but this is the kind of sentence an editor would break down and make clearer. Also, these two characters are introduced in the first two paragraphs of the book with their names and titles and it was a bit “listy” for me; it was as if Methos were checking off his list of characters, which is an amateur move.

There are other issues such as the line, “Some kids came in, probably no more than thirteen.” Thirteen kids? Or kids who are no older than thirteen? There were stereotypical lines in dialogue like the line, “Them models is screwed up something fierce” said by a guy who lives in a trailer park. Methos also talks about OCD, which seemed a bit like a crutch.

The person I wanted to follow the most was the defense attorney, Dylan Aster. As soon as he appeared in the book, the momentum changed. His style, dialogue, and storyline are much more compelling to me than the other characters. In my opinion, Methos has much more fun writing Aster than Yardley. There’s an ease in the writing that isn’t there when he’s writing Yardley. In fact, the biggest problem I had with the book was the plot line. For me, Aster’s chapters would have been a stronger starting point. The way the story reads, Aster doesn’t come in until halfway through the book and it made it seem like a separate story. It was almost as if the first half was a long preface. Again, this is something an editor should spot and help rework.

I received this book through the Read Now Pprogram on Net Galley. This is the 2nd book that I have read from this author and enjoyed both of them.

This story has Jessica Yardley preparing to retire from the U.S. Attorney office in Nevada. Before she is able to leave, she catches this case of a serial killer. As she follows up on the case she becomes friends with the 2nd victim of the serial killer. She was lucky and did not die. Jessica becomes friends and starts to suspect Jessica's boyfriend is the killer. Because she is retiring, another person who was selected to replace her, will be handling the trial. The individual ignores her advice and when they bring the case to the Grand Jury, they do not get an indictment so the case winds up going to State Court instead. Because she was familiar with the case, the State Attorney General wants her to be the prosecutor for the state.

The trial commences and the defendant's attorney has laid out quite a defense and ultimately addition information is uncovered.

The conclusion of the case is spelled out in the ending of the book. Following the data, it is something that you would not expect. To find out who the killer is and what Jessica gets involved in, then you must read this book. You won't be disappointed.

“Crimson Lake Road “, the name of Victor Methos’ latest novel ,is also the name of a road in rural Nevada that runs through a largely abandoned lakeside town. It is there that police are called when a body is found. The dead woman was tortured, then wrapped in black coverall and her face swathed in bloody bandages. The investigation goes nowhere. Then a month later, the police go to the Road again, finding another victim, this one alive but also tortured. Because the crimes appear to be the work of a serial psycho, the FBI is called in to investigate due to their greater expertise in criminal profiling. Leading that investigation is Jessica Yardley, a US Assistant D.A.
Mr. Methos is known for his courtroom dramas,/ crime thrillers, He has written another good one. The first half of the book is mainly concerned with the investigation. It also introduces his primary character Jessica Yardley and fills put her out her persona. . She is about to retire from the federal service because she has had enough of the facing the heartbreaking , soul-destroying effort needed to find and convict the monsters who abduct and kill , leaving mutilated corpses behind. Jessica’s daughter Tara, Is a high achieving teen who is already in college via scholarship, and working in advanced Mathematics . Jessica plans to go to a nice little town with a nice little law practice that handles Wills, property closings and estates. The sort of law that is boring , mundane and far from criminal homicides. But before that , she has to find this killer the press named The Executioner.
This first part of the book is about progress of the investigation. Following a few clues, links are found to an ex-con living in Crimson Lake who was convicted of kidnapping and sexual abuse. That investigation leads to another man whose alibi does not hold up and in whose house is found materials exactly the same as those used in the murder. Yardley holds off retiring to prosecute this last case. Here, Mr Methos steps into his lawyer mode to write some crackling good courtroom scenes. Yardley faces a crafty opponent, a surly judge and growing doubts about the defendant’s guilt.
By the time of the last page is turned, guilt or innocence decided , revealing the tangled motives of a twisted past, the reader will have enjoyed a very good book that was well worth his or her time. I recommend it.
( I would have given it a five star review But for the occasional awkward syntax of the author. Mr. Methos did something I never noticed in his other books I read, namely the run- on sentence, with a dangling participle clause here and a out-of-place adjectival phrase there. It did not happen often , but when it did it was fun to figure out just what he meant to write..) Besides, the book was generally well done on the whole.

Cautions: violent murder scenes can be disturbing or some. No sexual content, either romantic or violent.

I have not read the first book in this series and was concerned I would not be able to follow the book. However, Crimson Lake Road gives enough details that the first book really isn't essential to the storyline. There is enough background information that you can make it through the book without reading the first book.

This was quite the journey. I had no idea the story line until I got to the end. This book definitely kept me guessing as who the bad guy was. And rooting for Yardley not to quit her job. It felt a bit slow in the beginning but overall I enjoyed the book. It was a little gruesome at times with some of the details, so not for the faint of heart. I felt like something was off with one of the main characters but I guessed completely wrong. I enjoyed that Victor kept me guessing until the very end.

Thank you Net Galley and Thomas & Mercer for the e-arc in exchange for my honest review of the book.

Crimson Lake Road

First, I would like to thank NetGalley for allowing me to preview this book.
I was hooked on this book from the first sentence. I suppose I have a book type and this was it.

The book centers around a murder and an attempted murder of two women, another possible serial killer. You come to meet multiple members of the law enforcement team and the surviving victim of the crime, as they all follow leads and hunt the real killer.
I was captivated right away with Yardley, a lawyer for the attorney general’s office, and her history of being married to a serial killer. They also had a daughter, Tara, that has a star-shining roll in the book.
I feel like I cannot adequately tell you what I loved best about this book, as I would be giving away the plot, but the end of the book was worth the entire read. I am hoping we get to meet these characters again in a future book.

Thanks to netgalley for an advanced copy! I really enjoyed this sequel as much as first book. It kept me turning the pages to find out what happens next. I liked that they developed the character more for Jessica’s daughter. I will continue to follow this author.

Women are getting taken and used to replicate paintings; one is murdered and one survives. This is such an interesting case and starts off with a real gripping storyline. We follow Yardley again as she helps to search for what is believed to be a serial killer, befriending a victim tied to the case along the way. Add in a missing, presumed kidnapped teenager and this was set to be a nail biting read. However, as like the previous book, this was incredibly tedious and slow in the middle. Around 70% it’s a struggle to keep invested and I started to find myself forgetting who everyone was as my mind kept drifting. I really enjoyed the character of Aster, which did add something to this middle section; but just nothing much happens. As this series seems to do, it then picks the pace back up at the very last minute. I honestly wish that these books were about Tara and her father because their parts of the story are so intense and gripping. This is the second time that they’ve been dropped into the ending, leaving a massive cliffhanger that makes me want to pick up the next book. I’m starting to think this is done on purpose because the writer knows he has to give us something far more interesting than what we would get with another book regarding Yardley. However, I did actually really like this ending, it was emotional and interesting. But would I pick up the next in the series? However much I want to find out what happens with Tara, I’m not sure I can do another 30% in between while I wait for something more, so we will have to see.

This is an excellent legal thriller. This is the 2nd book in the series and can be read as a stand-alone, but, reading the 1st book is really helpful background wise. The characters are bold and likable and the storyline is gritty and well written. If sexual assault or child abuse is something you struggle reading about tis book is definitely not for you. For me this book was a must read and Methos is excellent at the twists and turns.