Detective Angie Pallorino took down a serial killer permanently and, according to her superiors, with excessive force. Benched on a desk assignment for twelve months, Angie struggles to maintain her sense of identity—if she’s not a detective, who is she? Then a decades-old cold case washes ashore, pulling her into an investigation she recognizes as deeply personal.
Angie’s lover and partner, James Maddocks, sees it, too. But spearheading an ongoing probe into a sex-trafficking ring while keeping Angie’s increasing obsession with her case in check is taking its toll. As startling connections between the parallel investigations emerge, Maddocks realizes he has even more than Angie’s emotional state to worry about.
Driven and desperate to solve her case, Angie goes rogue, risking her relationship, career, and very life in pursuit of answers. She’ll learn that some truths are too painful to bear, and some sacrifices include collateral damage.
But Angie Pallorino won’t let it go. She can’t. It’s not in her blood.
This is the second Angie Pallorino book in the series. I like this character, a lot. She’s strong, independent, not afraid of getting hurt, either physically or emotionally, all in the name of doing what is right.
She’s damaged. And she has demons to work through, but don’t we all, on some level?
I REALLY like how the first book’s case led directly into the second book. You can read this book as a standalone, but the reading The Drowned Girls would make The Lullaby Girl make a bit more sense.
I didn’t give it five stars because I felt like it dragged a bit, but not so much that it yanked me out of the story. I also really like how Ms. White weaves a story around two different cases at once. At first, it’s a little confusing and a bit disorienting, but she soon makes it clear that the cases are tied together somehow and it works.
There were a few editorial mistakes. Missing words that momentarily made me stumble, but they were minor and not a deal breaker.
The story itself was disturbing but believable. Unfortunately, I’m sure there are sex-trafficking rings moving to this day and I’m sure they won’t be going anywhere any time soon. That sort of evil goes hand-in-hand with our fallen world today.
The love story between Angie and James is a bit hard to swallow. They seem too mismatched and the majority of this book they didn’t interact much at all. I don’t doubt their feelings for one another but I do wonder at the motivation for their feelings for one another. I understand where they are coming from but given the personalities I’ve read thus far it almost makes them a couple feel … off. I think the ending, between these two, was too rushed and felt contrived. I would have liked to see them interact more and maybe put off the ending for another book, or two. I feel like these two need more relationship building opportunities, outside of solving cases together.
Though I understand Angie’s anger and confusion, she needs to get herself sorted out first, and allow the reader to see this growth, before she jumps into anything long term with any character. Though to be fair, nothing concrete was resolved in this book between the two, just implied.
I didn’t really see the bad guy coming till near the end of the book, which was a nice surprise. I like how Angie’s parent’s relationship was complicated and a by product of their unfortunate circumstances. It’s hard to write anything more about that situation as I feel like that was a central part of the book’s premise and I don’t want to spoil it for anyone, but suffice it to say, it was believable, on a more disturbing, realistic level.
I am definitely looking forward to reading book three in Angie Pallorino’s series.
Write From Karen 