Duchess and Robin are the kids of a mother who seems to be spinning her wheels. Tracing their lives all the way back to a pivotal, heartbreaking event of the parents’ generation, the novel shows how events and their consequences cascade in more profound ways than any one character can perceive or intend, as the sheriff investigated a crime concerning the kids, and they themselves, especially Duchess, deals with the fallout, even as answers are few and far between, shrouded in mystery.

Loss of innocence tied to the American Justice system is really well struck here. The characters are well rendered and all have their own problems, making the plotting feel pretty organic. It’s a fairly bleak place. A tad too melodramatic for my tastes, veering into commercial fiction territory. It shows a bit too much of the buttressing, in so far as things feeling a bit too squarely tied up for something purporting to be messy and sad.

That said, I liked everything else about it. Prose work is tinged with consistent emotion and straight forward. It keeps things interesting with the cinematic approach to scenes ending, feeling edited—something I particularly like in thrillers like this. And the characters themselves are stand out; far better work in that department than average. It doesn’t feel derivative even when it’s predictable, which is a feat in this genre intersection.

Audiobook wise, the narration was better than average and can recommend it. (3.5/5)