I like this book and have liked Freeman's others. There's only one thing that really bugged me and that's the necessity of the author to make the killer focus on Serena, Stride's transplanted love interest from Las Vegas. There seems to be a trend among authors to believe that in order to make their police procedurals more interesting there has to be a personal connection between the cop and the bad guy; the cop as victim. I think it's unnecessary and personally don;t think it adds anything. Makes the cops do stupid stuff, too. I'll never forget that seen in Silence of the Lambs where what's-her-name-the-neophyte-FBI-agent, contrary to all good sense and orders goes into the basement on her own. That's when I tuned out. Dumb shit. I hate it when heroes do dumb things because of some artificial personal involvement. Otherwise a great read (listen - I'm listening to the audio.)This one has a good, complicated (perhaps overly so) mystery. A warning to the squeamish. This book has some very explicit violence.
