The House on Graveyard Lane

This is fourth in a series, a thing I was entirely unaware of when I started it. Thankfully, there was enough catchup woven in that it wasn't a pain point for me to jump into the story. That being said, maybe I would have known better what to expect when the story took a sudden swerve from a very interesting hook to an entirely different plotline. There are two leads here - Rachel and Jacob - and despite the book description spending more time on Rachel, the book itself spends a lot more time on Jacob. The story begins with the death of Damaris Gethin (Rachel's case), but immediately takes a turn to follow the life of another woman, Kiki de Villiers (Jacob's case). Kiki is a person of interest for unspecified reasons. She's got history in this town, and there are a lot of different threads connected to her: the police, organized crime, a mysterious third party? Is Damaris also part of her story? Only somewhat. Jacob and Rachel intersect a few times, more out of coincidence than connection, but the lion's share of the story is about Kiki. There's plenty of cat and mouse in here leaning more into a thriller than a mystery, with a large amount of legwork in Rachel's case being done off the page. It's a shame, because she and the case are incredibly interesting, and I would have liked to follow that thread more. Still, if you want to follow the adventures of a crime reporter tracking down a woman with a mysterious past as she tangles with a crime organization, then this might be the book for you.

Thanks to NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press for an advance copy! All thoughts in this review are my own.