Detective Angie Pallorino knows she’s not the easiest person in the world to deal with. She also knows she’d damn good at her job, in the sex crimes unit of Victoria, Canada’s city police force. The discovery of a mutilated, near-dead young woman in a graveyard bearing striking similarities to an old case sees Angie seconded to Homicide, where to her horror she has to work under the new boss, James Maddocks… a man with whom she had an anonymous sexual encounter just a couple of days prior.
The detail in this book is absolutely incredible. Loreth Anne White has obviously painstakingly researched all the forensic detail and police procedure necessary to make this feel absolutely authentic, yet never devolves into tedious explanation. Her writing has an immediacy, a reality, which transports the reader to the described locations right alongside Angie as she struggles through personal difficulties and obstruction from above to get to the truth… which turns out to be far bigger and more far-reaching than she could ever have imagined.
I grabbed this book because I just read an advance copy (through NetGalley) of The Girl In The Moss, the third book in this series, and I was just so utterly riveted. I couldn’t get enough of the author’s writing, of Angie herself. I read all three of the books in one day, and I honestly can’t remember when an author last hooked me in like that.
If you like crime drama with a strong female lead - and make no mistake, Angie Pallorino, for all her traumatic past, is strong as they come - you’ll absolutely love this series. Start here and make time to read them all. Worth every hour of lost sleep. Five stars.
The Drowned Girls is exclusively available through Amazon, free in KU or in Prime, or just $1.99 to buy.