This is the latest in the series of thrillers written by Karen Rose and featuring the immensely screwed up family of District Attorney Susannah Vartanian.
If you haven’t read the earlier books, don’t let that put you off. I was a newbie to the series but didn’t have a problem getting into the story.
Susannah is a woman trying to get her life back on track after dealing with being brutalised by a sadistic gang headed by her evil brother.
Her other, non-evil brother, is a cop who gets shot early on in the story but still manages to feature as quite a strong background character.
The third main character in this story is her cop brother’s friend and colleague Luke Papadopoulos, who investigates sex crimes against children.
Susannah is pulled into Luke’s world when her brother’s investigations turn up five dead girls in a bunker and evidence of more kidnapped for a paedophile ring.
There were parts of the book that were a tad awkward and almost hardcore Mills and Boon-ish (the physical relationship between Susannah and Luke) but all-in-all the story itself was intriguing and twisty enough to keep me interested.
I wouldn’t put this anywhere near the top of my list of favourite thrillers but it was a good enough read to keep me interested until the last page in spite of some of the slightly uncomfortable character developments.