(2.5 stars) It was my own fault that I went into this not having read anything about it and expecting another Dublin Murder Squad book, which this is not. I didn't mind that (once I realized a hundred pages in that there was no police squad showing up and I should stop waiting for them...) and I enjoyed French's excellent, atmospheric writing.

But her portrayal of a sometimes-Chicagoan/sometimes-Southern-South-Carolinan retired cop never rang true and it was clear that she hadn't spent enough time in Chicago to get that environment right (never, ever, ever has an early Chicago morning had a lemon-tang smell; and I have lived through countless days every year that have vacilated from snow to sun to rain and wind and then back to snow.) The weather is any Chicagoan's most common punchline, second only to highway construction, so it was such an obvious misstep.

And so was the uncomfortable subplot of Cal's reason for retiring: wrapped up in a police shooting of an unarmed Black teenager. The last person I care about telling that story is a White Irish woman. Even this one, who I like a lot.

And the narrative proximity of the reveal of Cal's daughter's mugging and then Lena immediately refusing to let him leave felt too easy, too amateurish for French. Even her high skill as a writer couldn't save a mediocre story and plot.