4.5 stars.

I received this book from Titan in exchange for an honest review.

I swear these books just get better and better!!!

In the third book in the Ellery Hathaway series, FBI profiler Reed Markham and suspended small town cop Ellery Hathaway head to Las Vegas to reopen a 40-year-old case - the one that left Reed an orphan following the brutal murder of his mother.

This book was brilliant from the first page. I felt so invested in this case as it was such a personal one to our characters - Reed for obvious reasons, and Ellery due to her close if fraught relationship with him. The particular case came at a really good time in the series too - we've had two books now to get to know Reed as a character, and some of his family, and now with this one, it was tense but exciting to see how he would react to each new discovery and also marvel at the past he never knew he had with him.

I think I also really like thrillers or detective mysteries now that seem to have dirty cops mixed in with the story or a corrupt police department as a whole. I like how that was weaved into this story while not completely being attached to the murder of Reed's birth mother. I'm really excited to see where that storyline goes, and I can only hope it's what the next book in the series will focus on.

I definitely guessed the culprit fairly on in this one, as I think it was a bit obvious from the start but I still enjoyed how it all played out. In true Joanna Schaffhausen style too, she left us with a really exciting bombshell which definitely took me by surprise and was a great twist to the story.

I can't get enough of this crime series!