The back matter made this sound much more salacious than it really was, and I guess I was kind of disappointed on that front. The story moves along at a pretty good clip, but the characters weren't compelling and the suspense really didn't do it for me. Cate feels appropriately ashamed of her big secret and decides to abandon her problem behavior pretty early on in the story, which sucked all of the drama and tension out of the situation, and when it's revealed to everyone, she calmly owns up to it, which kills the tension there, too. The villains were so over-the-top they were irritating and their motivations made little sense. Granted, I don't read too many thrillers, but I've heard good things about Scottoline and the premise sounded interesting, but I think I'd have been better off just watching an episode of "Law & Order" instead.