Review by Booklist Review
Readers who fell for teenager Evie in Robotham's earlier novels (When She Was Good, 2021; Lying beside You, 2024) will welcome her return. She's ornery, she's cranky, and she's endless trouble. Now, she's nearly a decade older and still at it: if a date "tries to kiss me I'll knee him in the balls." But Evie, for good or ill, has mellowed out. She and her friend, psychologist Cyrus Haven, are close by when a boat shatters near a beach in the pair's northern english village. It's loaded with refugees from Eastern Europe, and all but one of them are killed in the wreck. Cyrus notes details that make the boat story into one of human trafficking rather than freedom seeking, and may contain clues to Evie's mysterious background. Around halfway through, the novel stops being a mystery-thriller and becomes a semi-sociological narrative. Still, dirty deeds are done, Robotham's prose gleams, the finale is satisfactorily bloody, and there are flashes of the old Evie. But she has to grow up. As she might say, too damn bad.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Robotham's stirring fourth mystery featuring forensic psychologist Haven (after Lying Beside You) is the best yet. Four years earlier, Haven was called in to interview teenager Evie Cormac, whom Nottinghamshire police had found hiding in a house with the corpse of a murdered man. After Haven learned that Evie was trafficked into the U.K. from Albania, he informally adopted her, and now occasionally leans on her skills as a human lie detector to help him crack cases. During a visit to the beach one afternoon, Haven and Evie witness the bodies of 17 migrants wash ashore. Most are dead, but the lone survivor suggests that their boat was deliberately rammed. The incident sends Evie into shock, rendering her unable to speak or move, and Haven wonders if the tragedy might somehow be connected to her past. Seeking answers, Haven learns of a master criminal called "the Ferryman," a trafficker one of his National Crime Agency contacts calls "a Keyser Söze or a Lex Luthor or a Moriarty." Soon, Haven discovers that the Ferryman is even more powerful than the rumors suggest. Robotham adds moving new dimensions to the dynamic between his well-developed leads, and shrewdly connects the central mystery to Evie's backstory. This series continues to impress. Agent: Richard Pine, InkWell Management. (July)
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
Nottingham forensic psychologist Cyrus Haven investigates a mass migrant murder in his fourth outing. Cyrus and his friend Evie Cormac--born Adina Osmani--are enjoying a day at the beach when a woman screams that someone is floating in the ocean. Cyrus swims to the rescue, but he's too late. Then more bodies float in, 17 in all with but one survivor. They had come from the Middle East, desperately trying to reach British soil. But miles out in the English Channel, another boat had rammed into their inflatable dinghy, sinking it. Who? Why? Was it an accident? Was it xenophobia, a warning to keep foreigners out? Or does it go deeper? A mysterious ferryman is said to control the human trafficking across the channel, but most people think him a bogeyman, the stuff of ghost stories. Then the lone survivor is murdered; how will police ever learn what happened now? In Scotland, Cyrus is told, "Oh, that's a dangerous beastie, the truth, a monster in the loch." Cyrus and Evie narrate alternating fast-paced chapters that will rivet the reader's attention. Both have backgrounds you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy. Cyrus' older brother murdered their parents and two sisters. Evie, from Albania, lost her family and has been sexually trafficked and tortured. "Coin-sized lesions" from cigarette burns pock her legs and abdomen. Cyrus fostered her, and they have become good friends. The interplay between the two main characters makes the story stand out. She's attracted to him, but the feeling is not mutual. He cares deeply about her, but he'll never violate his professional ethics. So she's both jealous and happy knowing that he's "bumping uglies" with a more appropriate woman. In his words, Evie is "damaged and self-destructive and a pathological liar, but she is also funny and feisty and intelligent and empathetic." There's also a great secondary character from Zimbabwe who deserves a role in Cyrus and Evie's next adventure. Fans of crime fiction will love this one. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
