In the Woods

I started this book out with high hopes and in some ways it delivered which is why I gave it three stars. I really liked the premise. I loved the story of a lost boy being found in the woods blood soaked shoes and his friends missing. I loved how this lost boy all grown up and a murder squad detective is called back to that lonesome town and those mournful woods. I love it.

But it did not work for me in the end. First, I really, really desperately wanted to like Adam Rob Ryan – really. But when he slept with his partner and that very morning gets up and walks out and starts acting like a moody teenager that did it for me as far as being able to like him in any way. I know he had a rough life, I know he is being traumatized by this case bringing up all sorts of emotions and memories about his tragedy as a child but come on she is his best friend and his partner his behavior seemed contrived. I thought his interaction with Sam and with his parents was real. Truthful. And even his initial interactions with Rosalind and Jessica felt right but not for long.

I admit I don't know much about crime scene investigation but honestly the crime lab did not choose to check out the storage places the day of the murder. Twenty yards away and out of bounds. I don't know it seemed like they would have checked the entire site. It just did not make sense to me.

It irked me the way the author pushed it back in the readers face about Rosalind being involved. This is Rob Adam Ryan speaking, “I am intensely aware, by the way, that this story does not show me in a particularly flattering light. I am aware that, within an impressively short time of meeting me, Rosalind had me coming to heel like a well-trained dog: running up and down stairs to bring her coffee, nodding along while she bitched about my partner, imagining like some starstruck teenager that she was a kindred soul. But before you decide to despise me too thoroughly, consider this: she fooled you, too. You had as good a chance as I did. I told you everything I saw, as I saw it at the time. And if that was in itself deceptive, remember, I told you that, too: I warned you, right from the beginning, that I lie.”

Contrary to what the author thinks I did figure out that Rosalind was involved. Right when she tried to seduce Ryan in that instant I knew. It made the whole Cassie spilling her guts story relevant. Hello psychopath.

I am used to books not telling the whole story (and I don't need happy endings) but I felt the author lied. Framed it up to be a story about Adam Rob Ryan and it never really was, the murder that he is called back to head up is solved but the reader never learns one tiny little detail about what happened that summer day back in 1984 when three 12 year olds went running into the woods and only one came back out.

But with all that (which does seem like a lot) I thought Ryan got what he deserved in the end. I was deliriously happy that Cassie and Sam get together. And I read every word which truth be told I don't do often with books I don't like. I think that says a lot about her writing ability and style.