4 stars I like Carey Lewis’ books and I’m always ready to read and review an ARC. I loved the first book in this series and I was looking forward to this one, but it was a bit of a mixed bag for me. This episode picks up where the last one left off, and I was pleased to be dropped back into Cooper’s life. It was heartbreaking and brought me to tears. His pain was described in stark detail and the unfairness of it was striking. Desperate for help, he goes to the police station to talk to his old boss. The best he can do is offer him a business card for a shrink. “Cooper stared at the card, wondering how much of his world could collapse before he fell into the oblivion.” I would have liked to spend more time with him, even if his life is depressing. There’s a good person underneath it all and I’m rooting for him. Joe Clark is becoming more and more unlikable. It’s clear he’s on the road to doing something he’ll regret, and I’m having trouble believing I’ll feel sorry for him. There’s very little about him that arouses my sympathy. He’s selfish, self-centered, self-pitying, and has a constant chip on his shoulder. However, there is a scene described in which Joe and his friends are in a local tavern and the despair and hopelessness of these people who are just trying to make ends meet and carve out meaningful lives for themselves is palpable. The author takes the time to describe each character in this group of friends by describing their appearance, their occupations, and the dreams that they never achieved. Somehow, the description of Jacob, Joe’s closest friend and co-worker is all-too-believable. I could see him clearly in my mind’s eye: “...Jacob, the ex-junkie who was a little slow and very shy. Skinny and with a hunch to his back, the guy represented simple folk everywhere that were happy to have a job and a person who cared about them.” All in all, it’s a sad statement about where we are as a society when people who work so hard are forced to struggle and be happy with scraps. Steve Clark is a more complicated character and likable enough, but I still can’t quite get a feel for what kind of a person he really is. I am curious to learn more. Unfortunately, the part of this story that I found most difficult to digest is the part of it that is most essential to the plot. It’s a police story, with characters on the periphery. I was more interested in the characters than in the procedural aspects of the job they were doing. At times, I got confused and couldn’t keep track of who was who and what was happening, but I’m afraid that’s on me. I got the broad strokes and understand who are the mostly good guys and mostly bad guys, because there’s no clear-cut good and evil characters. But the conversations between the cops went over my head. There were words used that I’m sure are authentic, but not being in that field myself, I had to figure them out and sometimes there wasn’t enough context to help me fill in the blanks. Also, there were so many cops and sometimes they were addressed by their first names, but other times by their last. I can’t help but feel that if I were watching a TV show with all of these characters, it would be much easier to keep track because there would be visual clues. I don’t know how to address this in the book though, other than having a list of characters available for readers to use as reference. In fact, I would recommend a list of all “cast members” at the beginning of each episode to help refresh the reader’s memory, while also offering a quick reminder when a name pops us and the reader isn’t quite sure who that is. I suspect that would solve my biggest issue, and I have to think I’m not the only one. For the most part, I enjoyed the book and I’m looking forward to the next episode (crossing my fingers there will be a reference list to help jog my much-too-rapidly-aging memory). November 29, 2020
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