Charlotte Raine

This was a quick and easy enough read but I never really felt I connected with the characters. The story follows Mira, a trace evidence analyst working with the police to solve crimes. In particular this novel follows Mira as she works to solve the death of a young college student who dropped dead unexpectedly. For all the focus on trace evidence analysis, there's about 30 seconds - the rest is Mira acting as a detective, going around harassing suspects and trying to find clues. If this was marketed as a cozy mystery type novel, I wouldn't have cared - but I thought this was more of a procedural. As a procedural it fell short. That being said, it wasn't a particularly difficult or complex read and I flew through the pages. I didn't hate it, but I also didn't love it. I'm also annoyed because I didn't realise this was not a complete novel - rather this is part one. Not knowing what happens annoys me but I don't think I'll bother to find out. What I did enjoy was the alternating viewpoints of Mira and the murderer but the whole narrative was missing something. To be honest it kind of felt like I started with the second or third novel. I was more intrigued by Andre and would've liked to read about that case and their relationship and about her sister. The later plot points just confused me. Her involvement turned stupid rather fast. Like how does she have a gun? She's not a police officer? Can she even shoot? And then he disappears with her gun and she doesn't seem overly concerned by that. Maybe if it had no bullets or something. There was no panic or tension.… (altro)