When Duncan gets a phone call from his ex-wife, Vic, he agrees to look into a suicide from five years ago of the poet she’s writing a biography of. He doubts there’s anything to find, even if the decision cause strife with his and Gemma’s fledgling romantic relationship. As expected, there’s no real evidence of anything other than a suicide in the case file. However, when a sudden death occurs, it throws everything up into the air, and Duncan has a personal interest in solving the case, even if the secrets he and Gemma uncover have serious consequences.
This one was really slow to start. I think part of it was the fact that we spend a lot of time in the first half of the book in Vic’s point of view, and while she’s an interesting character, she wasn’t what I was there for. That portion does set a number of things up, though I definitely guessed on of the plot twists from the start. I did like the fact that we get to see Duncan and Gemma have a conflict and resolve it in that part where they both acted like adults. I also liked the fact that Gemma and Vic weren’t pitted against one another. It did work well as a catalyst for Gemma and Duncan to think about their relationship slightly longer term. Once the death happens though, things started moving more quickly. Bad decisions are made, and part of the pull of the story is seeing how everything falls out. It’s nice to see Vic as a person rather than the memories in Duncan’s head, and I like the fact that she was a fully fleshed out person with flaws and strengths of her own even if it was frustrating being stuck in her point of view at times.
Spoilers ahead. Vic is the person who dies, and Duncan does not take it well. Especially since he and her son are the only ones who believe it wasn’t natural causes at first. He takes evidence from the crime scene and then takes a leave of absence so he can look into things, despite the fact that it might harm his career. Gemma is concerned by the whole thing and does her best to be the voice of reason, though she also thinks that it was murder. There is also the matter of Kit, Vic’s son, who as it turns out is Duncan’s biological child, though Kit doesn’t know about that. I do really love the fact that all the characters feel very real in the way that they react to things and make bad choices. I was definitely more pulled into the story by the emotions of the characters than actually caring about the murder plot.
I’m not sure how I feel about the author constantly changing the status quo for the main characters every book. On the one hand, it does keep things from getting repetitive or boring, but the characters don’t really get time to explore how a change effects things before another change is thrown at them. I’m hoping that the next book at least lets Duncan take the time to settle into and figure out his relationship with Kit without throwing too much of another huge change at him. Becoming a parent is hard enough, but becoming a parent to a grieving child you never knew existed is a whole other ball of worms, especially since Duncan doesn’t seem to have much experience with children. There’s also the fact that Kit doesn’t know that Duncan is his biological father yet. The situation is also going to change his relationship with Gemma, maybe for the better, since he’s also now a single parent if he doesn’t have custody of Kit. We’ll have to see how all that develops in the next book. Four out of five stars.