Thank you Netgalley for my copy in exchange for a fair and honest review.

3.5 stars

This is the first installment in a trilogy introducing us to public prosecutor Jane Berzelius. She is fairly young and detached from her job; her father was also a prosectutor and taught her how to distance herself to be the best at her job that she can be. A high profile death draws us in at the beginning of this story; everyone is a suspect and Jane must remain impartial to even the grieving widow. Then things ramp up when a small, child sized handprint is found in the home, yet the couple had no children. Later, the boy is found dead on the beach with the murder weapon that killed both him and the man found shot in his home. This is an extremely dark tale with many triggers for others involving rape, extreme violence, and child trafficking. There is a bit of a cliff hanger as there are two more books to follow.

I felt this was a fairly strong beginning and the story was certainly gripping and held my attention; however, I had a difficult time connecting with any of the characters and really found myself not able to stand the character of Jane. The darkness of the novel was not a turn off for me but might be for some people. I'm interested to see where this one goes in the future.