Review by Booklist Review
After tackling a serial killer, political corruption, and rogue agribusiness in The Fields (2022), Riley Fisher leaves the sheriff's department in rural Black Hawk, Iowa, to start over as a rookie FBI agent at the Des Moines field office. Riley's past successes resurface in her new role, and she's sent into the heat of things after Governor Jess Cook requests her presence on the investigation of a stalker threatening her family. Partnered with surly veteran agent Peter Altman, Riley is expected to play the tagalong. But when she connects the stalker to the recent re-emergence of a serial attacker brutalizing women in Des Moines, she becomes the case liaison to the city's police. Meanwhile, alienated teen Kody joins a violent secret organization, high on their power, until he learns the truth about their leader's master plan. And then there's Riley's new mentor, veteran detective Julius Verne, a no-nonsense conduit for investigative detail and foil for her instinctive disposition. This fast-paced feminist thriller marks a series hitting its stride; pair it with Joanna Schaffhausen's Annalisa Vega procedurals.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Young's terrifying second Riley Fisher novel (after The Fields) finds the former Des Moines, Iowa, police sergeant working as a freshly minted FBI agent when unsettling news breaks. In the 1990s, a Book of Genesis--quoting criminal dubbed the Sin Eater brutally assaulted at least 18 Iowa women before vanishing. Evidence from a series of recent assaults in the state suggests he's returned, and that his criminal ambitions are growing more violent. After the governor of Iowa receives an anonymous and virulently misogynistic letter decorated with the Sin Eater's signature serpent markings, the FBI and Iowa Division of Criminal Investigations create a Sin Eater task force to which Riley is assigned. Pressured to succeed for the sake of both public safety and her fledgling career, Riley can't shake the feeling that one of her new colleagues on the task force has ulterior motives for signing up. As the investigation unfolds, Young transforms a seemingly rote procedural into a high-octane, ardently feminist thriller with surprising narrative layers and a nightmare-worthy villain. Karin Slaughter fans, take note. Agent: Daniel Conaway, Writers House. (Feb.)
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
A newly minted FBI agent reckons with her demons and faces Trump-era politics and toxic masculinity in the beginnings of a post-Covid world as she tracks down a serial killer who has re-emerged after 30 years. Not long after the harrowing events of The Fields (2022), former Black Hawk County, Iowa, police sergeant Riley Fisher, now with the FBI, finds herself embroiled once again in a horrific investigation, this time set during a brutally cold winter in Des Moines. After disappearing into the ether for nearly 30 years, a masked man widely known as the Sin Eater has reappeared, leaving images of a snake and an apple near the body of his victim and sending the city into a panic. When the newly elected governor--the first woman in that position--receives a death threat, it falls to Riley to track down the Sin Eater before he can strike again. Big-city politics take center stage as Young attempts to illuminate the struggles and violence faced by so many people, often without justice, and the difficulties women contend with in male-dominated fields. Riley is a complex and compassionate character who grapples with her own trauma, reckoning with how it's shaped her while also attempting to move on from it. She struggles with the guilt of leaving her young niece back in Black Hawk County while her family is still healing in the wake of the events of The Fields, and she becomes frustrated with a new partner who might not be on the up and up. Her resilience and tenacity as she's thrown curveball after curveball--in both the case and her personal life--will have readers rooting for her as she puts the pieces of the mystery together. But while Riley's character contains nuance, the other characters feel two-dimensional and fail to help this installment stand out. A somewhat predictable and heavy-handed thriller. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
