Never Coming Home

Started out great, but lost steam. Too small a cast of characters, story a little drawn out, ending is a bit of a weird surprise.

Was It Really The Perfect Murder? This is an interesting tale in that we get the villain's perspective - and virtually no one else's. Throughout this tale, it is clear that our narrator has killed his wife and believes he has gotten away scott-free - and is about to achieve everything he ever set out for in life because of it. Not because he had any ill-will, you see, simply that he is a problem-solver and a survivor, and he'll do whatever it takes to solve his problems so that he can live the life he has always deserved. Along the way we get the stories of the tragedies he has endured and the opportunistic ways he has taken advantage of situations regardless of any pesky words on paper about how wrong his actions may be. And we also see his unravelling when it becomes clear that someone seems to know what he did... Truly one of McKinnon's better books.

So why did I drop it a star despite rating every other book I've read from her as 5? Because this one does in fact mention COVID - a fair amount, actually - and I'm waging a one-man war to stop authors from doing that. At *least for now, and possibly for ever. The single star deduction is really my only tool in this one-man war, so I employ it any time a book mentions COVID at all, no matter how strong the book was regardless of this fact.

And again, this really was one of McKinnon's stronger tales outside of the COVID references. Very much recommended.