PLOT & PACING:
This third installment in the Henry Kimball/Lily Kintner series tries to walk the line between cerebral thriller and procedural puzzle—but the tension fizzles out fast. The twist? There is no twist. By the midpoint, all the cards are on the table, and what could’ve been a gripping game of cat-and-mouse becomes a predictable walk to the finish.

CHARACTERS & VOICE:
The return of Lily Kintner and Henry Kimball may thrill longtime fans, but for newcomers, there’s not much to hold onto. The characters are intriguing, but largely underused—particularly Lily, who doesn’t really get to flex her moral ambiguity until well past the point of caring.

STYLE & ATMOSPHERE:
Swanson’s prose is tight and accessible, and the book is readable in a single sitting. Unfortunately, clarity and quick pacing don’t compensate for a lack of suspense. The tone is clinical where it should be chilling, and the atmosphere never quite grips you.

THEMES & DEPTH:
The potential is there—a meditation on whether some people are simply wired for murder, and the psychological games they play—but the execution is surface-level. Instead of exploring those ideas deeply, the novel skims past them in favor of a straightforward resolution.

PERSONAL TAKE:
I came in hoping for a morally ambiguous, twisty thriller with unreliable narration and high-stakes deception. What I got felt like a script outline with a rushed second act. If you’re invested in these characters from earlier books, you might get more out of it. As a standalone read, it just didn’t work for me.