Traces of Guilt

Overall, a decent thriller. Loved how Evie's thought patterns were laid out, as to how she was attacking each question in her investigations. A lot more mentions of Jesus/God than I've ever seen in a thriller/suspense novel, when it wasn't a core part of the Killer's MO, but these sections were easy enough to skim past.

1.5 stars
Well, I made it to the end. I feel worn out and rather depressed.

The book is billed as romantic suspense, but there is no romance and no suspense. I was never worried for the characters at any point. It was a slow and boring read.

The town is Carin, in the county of Carin, and a character is named Karen. Audiobook fail. It's difficult to know which is being referred to when they are all pronounced the same, so sometimes I'd think one was meant and another was actually the case.

Evie is supposedly the MC but we don't get much time in her head. She shares quite a lot by telling other folks things about herself, but we don't even know her well enough to know what is going on in her head. She's a driven workaholic, but loves her dogs...when does she actually spend time with her dogs? She's been a state officer for years but she prefers solving riddles and doing detective work. I didn't get a real sense of why she would stick with state police work when she really doesn't like it and why she wouldn't go into business as a private detective instead.

And then the weird inconsistencies:
First it jarred me that she admitted she disliked her gun and that she feared she would hesitate to use it. She had never really been in the line of fire and yet was a career Chicago-area officer. Does this mean she's mostly been on desk duty? Any officer that ever hesitates to use their tools may not even make it out of the rookie phase, and she would definitely have seen street action at some point and might have easily had to use her weapon just in researching a case while being a detective. This didn't add up with her being of such high reputation that she would be considered for a task force of this one's magnitude.

Second, the EVIDENCE! She's working one case and then wants to look at another few facets of a whole pile of other cases. The sheriff goes “Oh, that's fine, just pull anything you need. The boxes are all right there.” Uh, what? Protecting the chain of custody is the FIRST rule of forensic evidence. You can't just have free rein in the evidence locker to pull here and there from different cases. Every single case has to be checked out, signed for, and put back in its place. No wonder the task force bats 0/2 on getting cases convicted by the end of the book because no evidence is protected if no one is filling out proper paperwork and is just digging through boxes willy-nilly!

I won't continue ranting about some of the other major inconsistencies, but one thing that's worth mentioning is that Henderson in the past has written heavily evangelical novels which have touched on the heart of what faith is and offered the hope of that faith to many different folks in the course of the story. In contrast, Ann (a major character in this novel) has known many victims for a matter of years and they are still miserable and without belief...I kept wanting Jennifer to show up and start passing Bibles around to all the folks she cares about. The sheer number of folks in the book who don't believe, and the ones who do making only passing, quick mentions of faith/prayer to each other and not to the hurting unbelievers, ends up leaving the novel on a downer note and doesn't portray faith in the same way that Henderson has done in the past (as a gift to be shared in the past vs. a personal aid that isn't life-absorbing in this one).

Trigger warnings:
-child molestation (not detailed)
-animals involved in car crashes
-manipulative, controlling character

I may read the second book since I own the hardcover, but I'm not excited about it.

This read wasn't at all like I had expected. I had expected a different kind of intensity, the kind of physical exertion, of being prey to some killer... The intensity in this book was more of a reflective intensity, the kind of intensity that comes from knowing, seeking, and eventually finding. The traces of guilt flowed through this one like streams into rivers, guilt for seeing what you shouldn't, guilt for doing what you shouldn't, as well as guilt for doing nothing. I especially liked and respected the main characters both Evie and Gabriel, their relationship or lack thereof was one of understanding and principles, these were faith-based people, people I respected. I enjoyed the bits where Evie was able to detach herself from cases and still find laughter in the every day, and also how Gabriel seemed to understand Evie and stay distanced while still encouraging her progress. Overall, I am really looking forward to starting the next in the series soon.