I will preface this by saying I’ve never read from either of these authors before and I went into this one blind. I don’t recommend doing that. Seeing the stellar reviews, I thought this one would be a twisty, dark, thriller but it did not read that way at all. First of all, the entire story was really overwritten and melodramatic. 

Secondly, the plot goes from a run of the mill murder story to a sermon about social issues. As a mystery reader, I was really disappointed in how boring Lily’s murder was. It was extremely cliche and so predictable. I can’t help but compare it to Defending Jacob, which was a lot more entertaining and somehow darker even though it didn’t try to cram every social issue under the sun into the plot. 

I found the graphic descriptions of one character’s childhood gender transition and another character’s abortion to be really disturbing to read and not necessary to the story at all. I’m writing this review to let other readers know: this book isn’t about a mystery. It isn’t a dark twisty thriller that you can get lost in. It’s 450 pages of the authors fighting the culture wars in the clunkiest way possible. 

If the story was entertaining, or maybe about 100 pages shorter, I wouldn’t even care. As it was, it just missed the mark for me. I’m giving it two stars because I loved the setting, the beekeeping details, the courtroom scenes and the discussion of how witnessing domestic violence impacts children.