This is my third Karin Slaughter book in as many days, so I guess I was bound to find one I wasn't absolutely in love with. Which is not to say I thought this book was any worse than the ones in the Will Trent series, but it definitely wasn't for me.

My biggest problem was the historical fiction aspect. This was set in a police department in 1974. Lots of racism. Lots of sexism. Lots of homophobia. Lots of antisemitism. Lots of just about any kind of prejudice you can imagine. It was aggressive and constant and graphic. And I'm in no way blaming Karin Slaughter for that. She was capturing what it was like during the time, but I read thrillers for fun. I want them to be fun, and the constant onslaught of aggressive prejudice in this book made it kind of unpleasant. When I read books that heavily focus on prejudice, I prefer them to be more in the literary fiction/drama categories rather than thriller/mystery. So this whole paragraph is basically just me saying the book wasn't for me, but not because it was doing anything wrong.

I think I also wasn't quite as interested in the story. So much of the book focused on specifically the prejudice the two main female cops experienced. There was a serial killer who was killing cops, but the two kind of shared spaced 50/50 instead of being mostly about the killer with the prejudice as a backdrop. I wasn't the biggest fan of that partially because of my reason above, but also because the killer story line just felt weaker overall. I didn't care that much about it. I'd half figured it out and when it was revealed, it just felt a little like a letdown. Not terrible, just kind of meh alright.

But that isn't to say I didn't enjoy this book. Three stars is honestly what I give most cop thrillers. It was entertaining. I still finished it in a day because I was so invested, and I'm still planning to immediately pick up another Karin Slaughter book. What she does so well is capture characters and their perspectives, especially when those perspectives are prejudiced or kind of crappy. She loves to write characters who are bullies and I love reading it from her. This book just wasn't the book for me.

Overall, I'd recommend if you're specifically interested in reading about cop prejudice in the 70s. She captures it graphically and it was a main focus of the story, so I think people who want that would probably love this book. But it wasn't what I was really looking for. Still a decent book, though. I still think Karin Slaughter is great.