Becky Masterman (Rage Against the Dying) follows up her first Brigid Quinn adventure with a thriller that pits the 59-year-old ex-FBI agent against a sly killer in a case complicated by family ties. Readers last met Brigid as she dealt with the loose ends of her past; this time, her future hangs in the balance.
When Brigid's beloved sister-in-law dies after a prolonged illness, Brigid and her husband, Carlo, return from the Florida funeral with unusual cargo: Gemma-Kate Quinn, Brigid's 17-year-old niece. Although her father, Brigid's brother, is still very much involved in Gemma-Kate's life, a move to Tucson will allow the brilliant girl to study biology at the University of Arizona without paying out-of-state tuition. Slightly apprehensive about taking in a teenage girl--"Am I supposed to have the safe-sex talk with her?"--Brigid believes they can bond over their shared Quinn heritage of fathers with law-enforcement careers and anger issues, not to mention forensics conversations at the dinner table.
While she and Carlo help their niece settle in, Brigid also agrees to investigate the apparent suicide of a teenager whose parents attend her church. She intends to help the dead boy's mother find peace by allaying any suspicions of foul play but soon questions the circumstances of his drowning. Her attention is diverted when one of her pugs is poisoned and Brigid herself starts experiencing strange symptoms. As peculiar incidents multiply, it seems like Gemma-Kate might be the common link, and Brigid wonders if her niece's sweet smile masks a cold-blooded secret.
Masterman riffs on fears of disease and mortality while delving into the rocky landscape of family dynamics. Brigid's armor of capability and desensitization cracks under the pressure of hallucinations and other mysterious health woes, leaving this tough heroine vulnerable--and more sympathetic--as she worries that the true culprit might be age or terminal illness. Still more affecting is her concern that the malevolence she suspects in Gemma-Kate is merely a degree of the darkness inherent in every Quinn, a coldness Brigid herself has felt in the line of duty. Gifted at laying false trails and establishing multiple threads of possibility, Masterman pulls off a surprise reveal with virtuoso-level skill. Feisty and multilayered, Brigid shows she can think as well as fight her way out of a tough situation, an admirable if unlikely heroine readers will look forward to seeing again. --Jaclyn Fulwood, blogger at Infinite Reads
Shelf Talker: Brigid Quinn--senior citizen, loving wife and ex-FBI agent who can kill a man with her bare hands--takes in her teenage niece but soon wonders if the girl might be a monster.