This is one of those books that just could not get into. I know that it is getting a fair amount of buzz and a lot of my blogging friends adored it or at least found it thrilling but, personally, I couldn’t get past the fact that it was so darn slow and plodding. I never came to really care for the characters. Tessa was not particularly likeable - not just as a protagonist but as a character in general. I never felt that we truly got a read on her. She kept saying that she was weak and wimpy compared to her father and sister yet she was also ‘street smart’ and knew her away around trucker lingo…? She was made up of too many contrasting facts: a leader and a sheep, independent but needy. I never knew what was what with her. I also just did not find myself getting attached to any of the secondary characters. Callie, Maggie and Ryan all would have been more interesting if - like I said before - we just got to know them better. I always felt out of the loop and the character never jumped off the pages.

The mystery, also, just was not that great in my opinion. It tried to do too many things at once and I hated how it dumped all of the reveals and plot twists in these big chunky chapters at the end of the story. I did love how different and weird the twists were but I just wished it wasn’t just all plopped down at the end. There was no climax. It was just yep, we’ve reached the end of the book. Here is all your answers lumped together for your convenience. I would have liked the reveals to be a touch more dramatic or at least, revealed slowly over a period of time. We didn’t even get time to really see how they impacted the characters. The book was over before we could even wrap our heads around what was happening.

Overall, I guess this story would appeal to a particular group of mystery enthusiasts but it fell flat for me. The plot was too slow-moving for my personal tastes and the ending was not paced well. I also just could not get attached to any of the characters, even our protagonist. I haven’t heard particularly good things about the author’s previous trilogy but I think I’d like to give her another go. Maybe her next mystery will be more of my sort of thing?