I am clearing out my TBR, slowly reading stuff that’s been lingering, and clearly added this when I was way less sensitive to violence... it was a pretty hard read, but also pretty hard to put down at first. Then I got kind of overwhelmed and had to set it aside for a while. That said, other than the really distressing stuff, it was a fast-paced book with some deeply flawed characters that felt very real, a great sense of place, and a lot of twists and turns. I enjoyed it more than I expected, but I’m not sure I’m going to continue the series, purely due to my own old lady squeamishness (even though I also wonder what is going to happen to Valerie next).