I struggled with this book a lot in terms of the writing style. I actually dnfed it a few years back and only just now convinced myself to return and finish it. It just bored me a lot. There was so much going on, so many unresolved plot threads, that it felt messy.

I was also uncomfortable with how closely this book resembled a real serial killer. I'm from the area where this book was set and it is very obviously based on Timothy Spencer, the serial killer who raped and strangled four women just a few years before this book was released. That comparison alone wouldn't have bothered me so much, but one of the victims in this book is almost exactly the same as one of his real victims, down to the last detail. Just about the only thing changed was the name. It was so unnecessary and it felt disrespectful. She took liberties with the rest of the case, I'm not sure why that one victim needed to be the same.

A big detail at the end of the case also hinges on the fact that a black female victim, in the main character's words, didn't sound "black." There's a whole conversation where she misidentifies the woman's sister and has her clarify that she's black because she just sounds so gosh darned white on the phone. Which is super racist and never really acknowledged.

And then one of the characters is a literal rapist and it's just never really acknowledged? I kept expecting that to go somewhere, but it didn't. Everyone just kind of moved on, including his victim. Like I'm not sure what it had to do with anything in the book, but no one even seemed all that upset by the revelation.

I wasn't really impressed by this. Nothing about it added up for me. I have a later Kay Scarpetta book and I'm curious to see how Cornwell's style changes. Sometimes I find I don't like authors' debuts, but I like them a bit later on. I didn't hate this book, but I am very interested in the series since I'm from RVA as well, so I hope it improves for me.