On a bone-chilling October night, Medical Examiner Rowan Winthorp investigates the death of her daughter’s best friend. Hours later, the tragedy hits even closer to home when she makes a devastating discovery—her daughter, Chloe, is gone. But, not without a trace.

A morbid mosaic of clues forces Rowan and her husband to question how deeply they really knew their daughter. As they work closely to peel back the layers of this case, they begin to unearth disturbing details about Chloe and her secret transgressions…details that threaten to tear them apart.

Amidst the noise of navigating her newfound grief and reconciling the sins of her past, an undeniable fact rings true for Rowan: karma has finally come to collect.

This is my first Hannah Morrissey book and the first that I read in the Black Harbor series. This worked as a standalone murder mystery, not having read the first two books. I may have missed some things or characters from previous books, but it didn’t change the story or hinder my experience with this book. 

I listened to the audiobook, which is multiple POV with multiple voice narrators. Unfortunately, I really disliked the voice of Rowan, Caitlin Kelly. It sounded like she was trying to be breathy and seductive, which didn’t work at all for me. At times, she mumbled and sounded muffled, which made it hard to understand her portions. I preferred hearing the other narrators. I would not listen to Caitlin Kelly again. 

Overall, this was just an okay murder mystery. There was nothing special or unique about it. It felt like I was listening to an episode from the former TV series, Bones, but not as good. We followed the detective/crime investigating side with Axel, and then the medical side with Rowan since she’s a medical examiner. There were descriptions of the murdered or decomposing bodies that were gross, but they felt accurate. There was a lot of medical information, technical details, and portions of the story that felt realistic. 

The book was well-written with descriptive, lush writing that immersed the reader and transported them to this rather bleak town. The conveyed messages about Black Harbor were extremely negative. So much so that I wondered why these people would choose to stay in such an awful town where crime, murders, and dangers seemed to lurk around every corner. The place sounded absolutely dreadful to me. 

However, this murder mystery story fell flat for me. It was pretty repetitive, which made it sound boring for most of the book. There needed to be a lot more drama and action. I kept waiting for something big to happen, and it never really did. The last quarter of the book picked up in pacing, but before this part, it felt like a chore to get through all the investigating. It barely kept my interest. Honestly, if I had been reading this book, I probably would’ve DNF’d it about halfway in or before. But since I was listening to it, I just increased the speed to push through it. 

The characters were underwhelming for me. I didn’t connect with any of them, which didn’t make me care that much for them. Also, Axel and Rowan didn’t behave in ways I’d think parents would behave when their daughter goes missing, potentially kidnapped. The side characters were easy to forget about. There really weren’t any memorable qualities to any of the characters. The only one that I felt some compassion for was the neighbor girl next door, Libby. 

As for the murderer, I had no clue who it was until they were revealed. So at the very least, this book kept me guessing the whole time, which was fun. There were many red herrings that I fell for, and then when I realized it wasn’t that person, I had to rethink some of my guesses. However, once we discovered who the murderer was, I felt disappointed. I can’t really explain without spoiling the book, but it felt like a letdown. The last quarter of the book picked up in pacing, which I liked, but the whole resolution scene felt predictable and stereotypical. 

I didn’t hate this book, but I didn’t really like it either. It was very middle-of-the-road for me. I don’t know if I would recommend it, but if you’ve already been reading this series, then I’d suggest to keep going, and maybe you’ll like it more than me. It also takes place around Halloween, so it would be a good seasonal read around fall and Spooky Season. It did feel rather creepy and eerie at times. The atmosphere felt cold and mysterious. 

There was also quite a bit of language in this book and one spicy scene, which felt awkward and unnecessary. I don’t care for spice in my murder mysteries, so that was a turnoff for me. There were also some woke/liberal comments made here and there by characters, which was another huge turnoff and eye roll for me as well. Even though I appreciated the descriptive writing, I don’t know if I would read another book by this author.