Mystery/Thriller -- 3 1/2 stars
Badlands - Book 1
Lily Baker wakes during a blizzard, in a wrecked car with a man she doesn't recognize, the car's front end teetering over a deep ditch. Lily has no memory of who she is or how she got there. Early the next morning, a young woman is found dead in a dumpster behind Iver's bar. Iver has no memory of the previous night. Kylie Milliard, the only detective in this small North Dakota town, has her work cut out for her. ----- All the clues and all the suspects seem to swirl around Iver's bar and the woods behind it, making for a complicated and nearly opaque mystery. Uncooperative fellow police officers add another layer to the fast moving riddle. Lily and Ivers are frustratingly illusive, both carrying damaged histories that make them an interesting pair. I was really enjoying the disconnected hints and the number of suspicious characters all leading to dead ends. That is, until the ending. Excitement and surprise reveals can only do so much to ice over the unlikely connections between past events and lost memories. I expected better.
No comments:
Post a Comment