I ended up enjoying Brigid's character so much I devoured the remaining two books in the series within days. She is a woman you don't see often in fiction, given all the traits normally associated with a tired male LEO. Brigid is emotionally distant, unnecessarily secretive and until very recently, married only to her work.

She's retired from the FBI to Tucson, AZ with her newfound husband Carlo. She is contacted by a local FBI agent who believes that a serial killer from one of Brigid's old cold cases has finally been caught - or has he?

Soon, Brigid is up to her knees in unanswered questions and assassination attempts, all while trying to pretend that Everything Is A-Okay. Her stand-off with the sniper in the mountains is intense and vaguely hilarious, with her escape including "butt-slid(ing) down the steep side of the mesa, the Pugs bouncing along with me like a couple of basketballs." Snort.

I never much warmed to Carlo, he of the religious past and soft philosophy, but the way Masterman handled their confrontation about Brigid's lies and her past was absolutely superb. Brigid behaved as if she was being held hostage when she met with him in the end, all her lies having come to light: "... as as you keep the other person talking you have a chance of survival. Most people can't talk and kill at the same time." This reaction is indicative of both her recent trauma (see: serial killer) as well as the mindset she will never leave behind. She's already seeing her own husband as someone who's attempting to kill her, metaphorically speaking, while he is just desperately trying to come to terms with the person she has shown herself to be.

Behind her attempt at being A Woman of A Certain Age, Brigid is damaged and cynical. She's hid that from Carlo from the very first, convinced he would not like what he saw. He reveals a friend's betrayal of her confidence and then stuns her not immediately clamoring for a divorce, showing more backbone in one scene than he did in the entire rest of the book. "I liked this Carlo who was talking now, this powerful man who met me on my own ground. Maybe that's why I had married him, because I saw this version that first day in his classroom. Until now all the rest between us had just been trying on different people. Maybe we do that at any age."

The mystery, while very enjoyable, was for me, a vehicle to get to that scene between her and Carlo.