I have very quickly become a fan of Erin Young's Riley Fisher books. The Fields was a dark and brooding thriller that kept me rapt. The setting for Original Sins may have changed - Riler starting out on a brand new career with the FBI in the city - but the book has lost none of the tension or darkness I was expecting. If anything, it's opened up the realms of the possible a little as in a city, even one as relatively small as Des Moines, Iowa, there is a greater capacity for violence, corruption and, as Riley is set to find out, danger. 

I really like Riley Fisher as a character. She has her share of problems, and a very challenging family situation which she has deliberately tried to leave behind her with the move to the city. What she hasn't been able to leave behind is danger which has an alarming ability to find her. Tasked alongside a new, and very reluctant colleague, to investigate a threat against the state Governor, Jess Cook, it doesn't take long for Riley to make a possible link between the threat and spate of attacks against women across the city by a vicious character named by the media as the Sin Eater. Being the newbie, Riley has a real battle on her hands to be taken seriously, in part because of the way in which she found herself attached to the Des Moines office. But the author has infused her with an addictive determination and tenacity, as well as a fabulous ability to hold her own in some very sticky situations. She's not superhuman, and her gender is very much against her given the circumstances, but Erin young balances the divide between being the 'weaker' sex and her natural instincts well keeping it all very plausible.

There is a really dark undertone to this book. I don;t think it felt quite as stark as The Fields did at times, but there is an underlying sense of threat that runs from the start of this book. The author has taken the very risk danger that women are in on a daily basis, that feeling of unease and sense of jeopardy that comes from being a female alone at night for example and amplified it in a way which feels tragically authentic. It also takes the idea of an Incel style movement and amplifies it tenfold. As readers, we are more aware of the who and the scale of the challenge the FBI and local police face in catching the Sin Eater, and it makes for scary reading at times. There are some moments in the book where the pace and threat really picks up and I could feel myself actually reading faster, desperate to know how it all played out. And with some skillful misdirection and characters who are often quick to dismiss the threats as Riley's overactive imagination, it really did keep me gripped to the very last page.

It's a brilliant blend of action, intrigue, threat and carefully sculpted character that have made this an definite all the shinies read for me. I blasted through it,  quickly reminded of what a compelling storyteller Erin Young is, and how much I like Riley Fisher. If you haven't picked up The Fields yet, I'd recommend you start there as although this is a self contained story, you'll understand Riley and her family situation so much better if you go on the, sometimes traumatic, always addictive, journey with her from the start.