When the burned skeleton of a young woman is found in a locked trunk, the only hopes for identification rest with FBI Special Agent Zoe Spencer’s ability to reconstruct faces by sculpture. Finding out the victim was a high-profile missing person sets off a chain of events which culminate in the death of the victim’s sister, and Spencer must work out who is killing young women before any more die, in partnership (both personal and professional) with homicide detective William Vaughan.
There are some interesting twists and turns in this procedural, but I struggled to really get into the story because Spencer, supposedly our protagonist, was very closed-off and unemotional. Vaughan seemed more invested in getting justice for the victims but we didn’t get to hear much about his feelings and personal life. There were very tiny snippets from the killer’s perspective but not enough to give us any insight as to their motives, which were never really explored once the mystery was solved either. With a third protagonist in the form of independent reporter Nikki, we just didn’t get to spend enough time in any character’s point of view, and consequently no character seemed to get a complete story arc. The whole thing felt just a little disjointed and, at the very end, somewhat unsatisfying as at least one person seemed likely to escape justice for the crime they’d committed.
Three stars for an interesting story that just felt a little scattered and didn’t tie up as neatly as I prefer my mysteries to do.
Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.