As family liaison officer with the Minneapolis P.D., it's Afton Tangler's job to deal with the emotional aftermath of terrible crimes—but she's never faced a case quite as brutal as this. Each development is more heartbreaking than the last and the only lead is a collection of seemingly unrelated clues.
But, most disturbing of all, Afton begins to suspect that this case is not isolated. Whoever did this has taken babies before—and if Afton doesn't solve this crime soon, more children are sure to go missing... (Pub Date: Jul 5, 2016)
Review based on an ARC provided by Netgalley.
Afton Tangler works as a family liaison, hoping to be promoted into the investigations team when a baby is taken away from its cradle. With a lack on hands, she gets to act as partner to the detective in charge. But the puzzling case becomes more twisted by the minute. At the same time, the kidnappers are eager to get rid of the child as soon as possible.
I can't say this story was different or even that it was great. What I can assure you is that it entertained me. The text is very easy to read and the theme missing babies does attract me.
While I thought there would be more of a mystery—you know who took the baby and have a good idea of the reason even before you meet Afton—I didn't feel bored at all. The writing, dialogues and chemistry between the characters made for that. Above all, nice action scenes. Nothing that made me gasp, and yet I was turning pages like crazy. Even though there weren't real secrets for me to find out, I liked the way you still felt the urge to know what would happen next, anticipating the time Afton would finally figure out the child's whereabouts.
About the characters, warming up to the main character took me a while. First, the name choice was a little strange but it wasn't really that. I still haven't been able to point what my real issue was and my first guess is how apathetic she first seems. We meet her as she's climbing this place and then she's called by her boss as if she's this super detective. In the initial scenes, she just seemed too out of it. However, this changed. I wonder if the author got the hang of it or perhaps she is an acquired taste. I did enjoy how subtle they were to reveal her qualities. She is a strong woman with a nice personality. And who knows how to climb walls... Was that a random information? No. At one point in your life you'll run into a weird path off the road and find a hill you will have to climb in order to save the world. Sorry, I couldn't not mention this far-fetched and unnecessary scene to prove the characters knew how to climb.
On the other hand, I have to say I loved the mother of the baby. She went beyond the stereotype I was sure to get from the beginning and many times she even made me laugh. I think we won't be seeing her in the rest of the series but I was applauding the woman by the end of it. Another surprise for me Shake, who equally was able to overcome the typical empty-headed girl I was sure she would be, and got me cheering for her happiness. Max, being the lovely investigations mentor for Afton, comes as third in my favorites list.
I thought one weak point is the investigation. First, they would suddenly see a connection out of almost nothing. This happened a lot more than once, which is my limit to believe "miraculous insights". And to balance those, the author would suddenly take people through random routes we the readers already knew to be only random. I do know the police need to explore the options but we don't need to read through all of them. Mention and move forward. To make it worse, she ignored some procedures I'm sure the real police would have to go through, and she could have just mentioned they hadn't given any results. If this were real life, I would have all of them fired for negligence.
One final frustration, the reborn dolls seemed to be the main topic in the beginning but then disappeared in the background. I wish there had been more about them in the plot. The potential for disturbing scenes were unfortunately lost there.
With all that said, I want to read more from this series and know more about all the characters. I liked the writing, I liked the action, and I loved the rhythm. This is a safe read with good scenes to get you hooked.
Rating: 3 out of 5.
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