What We Buried

I have read this series since the beginning.  I love the characters and their adventures.  This story is quite different from the others.   The cold case deaths of Kennicott's parents and brother are revisited.  We are taken back to Italy at end of WWII.  Based on historical facts we learn about Kennicott's grandparents and the roles they played during WWII.  Does this tie into the cold cases?  Ari, Daniel and the crew along with a few new characters are working hard to solve them, can they do it before more people die?  A fantastic read.  Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this book!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review "What We Buried" by Robert Rotenberg.
I have been following the adventures/exploits/cases of Daniel Kennicott and Ari Greene since the first book in this series, "Old City Hall".
All I can say about this one is "wow"! I thought I knew what I was getting into when I started the book, but it was so, so much more.
What We Buried starts off with a murderous attack on Daniel Kennicott on his way home after returning from a trip to Italy, and then backs up to the preceding events that have led us to this point.
The death of Detective Kennicott's parents in a car crash years ago, and the murder of his brother Michael outside a cafe in Yorkville (yes, the series is set in my adopted hometown of Toronto, Ontario Canada) have never really been answered to Daniel's (and Ari's) satisfaction.
The cold cases are investigated on two fronts: Ari Greene, along with two new detectives - Sheppard and Darvesh - is investigating in the small town where the Kennicott's crash took their lives, having never been entirely certain that what occurred was, indeed, an accident. And they begin to uncover new evidence, which puts a whole new - and frankly terrifying - light on the event leading up to the crash and the crash itself.
In the meantime, Daniel Kennicott takes up his brother's quest and heads off to Gubbio, Italy (a place that his parents had also been to prior to their deaths) where he's given a history lesson about the Nazi occupation of Italy and the town's Forty Martyrs. A lesson that has reverberated right down through the years and may be a the heart of what occurs back in Toronto.
I was so not prepared for the emotional toll this one took - between the horrendous, true, historical events in Gubbio, Italy and the subsequent events back in Ontario - and I found myself teary eyed on more than one occasion.
Highly recommended. If you're a fan of David Baldacci, Scott Turow or any other legal/police thriller writers, Robert Rotenberg should be on your must-read list. Works just fine as a standalone, but the entire series is worth the read.