kirkusreviews.com
Forensic reconstructionist Rory Moore knows her odd quirks and
obsessive habits are a strength when she’s re-creating a crime, but when she
investigates a 40-year-old serial-killer case, even she isn’t sure she can
handle what she’s uncovering.
Rory works for the Chicago Police Department, reconstructing
homicides. She’s so good at her work that Detective Ron Davidson not only
tolerates her preferences (no touching, little eye contact, minimal social
interaction), but allows her frequent breaks to recover from her total
immersion in her work. One day Davidson asks Rory to meet with the father of a
murdered young woman. Rory’s calming hobby is repairing china dolls, and the
father wants his daughter’s doll repaired as a memento. But as Rory explores
the woman’s murder, she gets pulled into the case of The Thief, a suspected
serial killer who murdered young women in Chicago in 1979. Then, after Rory’s
attorney father dies, she finds that he had been representing The Thief, who is
about to be paroled. Alternating in time, the story follows Angela Mitchell, a
woman with autism who becomes obsessed with studying the murders in 1979; and,
in 2019, Rory, as one discovery leads to more surprises and questions.
Donlea (Don’t Believe It, 2018, etc.) so vividly describes the tension
the two women feel that the reader stays tense, too, as the stories
escalate. He’s also so careful about describing his characters’
particularities that neither woman is portrayed as bizarre (although the
people around them may think they are) but rather highly intelligent, tormented
women determined to find the truth.
In Donlea’s skillful hands, this story of obsession, murder, and
the search for truth is both a compassionate character study and a compelling
thriller.
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