2008 mystery (modern police procedural plus amateur), sixth in its
series. Police chief Van Alstyne is still working through grief over
his dead wife. But he still has to be the police chief.
And this town is still full of hateful people, bound up in racism
and toxic masculinity. Even the good guys refuse anything like
post-trauma counselling, because surely breaking down in tears while
you're driving is a good sign that you're ready to deal with a
high-stress situation.
Meanwhile farm labourers imported from Mexico may be in the country
illegally, and/or drug dealers, and/or victims of crime, and naturally
most of the town is ready to leave all of Those People to solve their
own problems. The whole thing is spread over about a year, which I
suppose helps resolve my issue with the remarkably high murder rate in
this small town, but I never really got a sense that anything else was
happening in the times between; all the important moments are here,
whether that's Russ and Clare dancing around each other, slivers of
progress on the case, or the town's first policewoman trying to avoid
getting into a relationship with a fellow cop (she had enough
complications in her life already).
It's great that the relationship that's been building over six books
finally reaches the point where both of them are mentally able to do
something about it. I just wish I cared more about them and they felt
less like worked examples from a textbook on relationships.
There's an early flash-forward to a very dangerous situation.
Flash-forwards always strike me as the author not having enough
confidence that their opening chapters will hold the reader's
attention.
And there's another "things are looking vaguely positive, let's shake
everything up out of nowhere" ending. Well, OK.
I'm interested to see where this goes, but my goodness it can be hard
work getting there.
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