Please note that I received this book via NetGalley. This did not impact my rating or review.
The Dying Light continues to follow the Two Rivers series written by Ann Cleeves. In her newest, Cleeves has Detective Matthew Venn called in to investigate the death of a teenage girl, Lottie, in a swimming pool in the home of an up and coming politician, Paul Armstrong. The teenage girl is called Lottie, and what is making things even more frantic is that Lottie’s best friend, Hannah Armstrong, is missing.
The Dying Light provides us Venn’s third person point of view, buy we also get points of views of other characters too such as Jen, Ross (just a few which surprised me) and Paul Armstrong’s wife. I honestly love Venn the most I think out of the characters that Cleeves has developed over the years because he seems more like someone I would actually interact with. He also has very realistic flaws I think when it comes to his personal life for good reason. And I think that he owns those flaws, but it’s what makes him great at reading people and getting people to talk to him. I also think outside of the Jimmy Perez series, this is the only other one that has someone who is married and happy. I do love that we have Jonathan very present in this one with his own things that are going on that may shake up him and Matthew’s happy home. We also get callbacks to prior novels with some characters re-appearing in this one that I always enjoy. I always find it weird in series when you have people meet and live among each other, you never see them again.
Jen and Ross are starting to get shaped by him in a good way I think. Jen more than Ross seems to be growing into her role and trusting her instincts. We also get an inkling that things at home with Ross may not be great.
I thought the overall plot involving Lottie and Hannah was really good and I honestly would not have guessed at what happened and who did what to whom.
