There has been a recent spate of books about a “righteous” serial killer who only kills “bad people” who arguably deserve it. This book unfortunately doesn’t measure up to the other entries in this category. Everyone except for the protagonist Cordelia was so flat and one-dimensional while Cordelia’s characterization was completely inconsistent. The dialogue and especially the text messages (with emojis!) sounded unnatural and were sometimes cringe-inducing.

There was also just way too much going on with all the side plots. Multiple story arcs felt like they were heading somewhere but then just… didn’t? For example, Cordelia begins sort of dating Christopher, a police officer, to make her best friend Diane happy and to get inside information on the police investigation into the string of disappearances (who are the “bad men” that Cordelia has killed). It quickly becomes clear that Christopher is really just a plot device with basically no personality and will disappear from the story when he no longer serves the story. 

The much bigger side plot that really fizzled out was regarding Cordelia’s job as a pharmaceutical rep. Considering what has come to light regarding OxyContin and other prescription drugs, I was glad that the novel opens by tackling the issues with the pharmaceutical industry and with pharma rep tactics head-on. At the start of the novel, Cordelia learns that the sleep aid which has been her main account (and main source of income) is getting pulled from distribution due to the company covering up its lethal side effects. This is obviously bad not only because Cordelia is complicit in this scandal but also because her supply of sleep drugs (which she uses to knock out her victims) is being cut off. Unfortunately, instead of the main character having a crisis of conscience (because her main “hobby” is literally killing people who cross her strict moral code) or dealing with being a hypocrite, this side plot just turns into

a blackmail scheme over forging signatures and Cordelia trying to cover up her tracks with no real conclusion to the whole drug scandal.

In fact, I found the “character growth” that Cordelia and the narrative insist has occurred to be pretty underwhelming. The novel starts with Cordelia saying that she’s super organized, and punctual, plans for everything, and needs to be in control of the situation. Yet the reader never sees Cordelia exemplifying any of those traits. The very first scene is her frazzled because she’s late in delivering cupcakes to her goddaughter and her supposedly meticulously organized life only unravels from there. To put it simply, Cordelia is a hot mess in the middle of a meltdown for this entire book. Yet the “character development” is all about learning to let go of control and not being a perfectionist. Frankly, I’m unconvinced that she ever was *in* control in the first place.

Thank you to NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press for providing me with a digital copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.