I'm a bit torn on this one. Up until pretty close to the end, I was into the story and feeling Manon's frustration and heartbreak and anger and all the rest. I was empathizing with Davy and cheering for Mark. But the way the reasoning behind the arrest was completely glossed over left me calling bullshit. As upset as Manon was about it, I have a hard time believing she wouldn't have pushed for more of an explanation. Particularly since it was so close to her personal and professional lives.

I would go 3.5 stars if I could. When I started writing this review, I had already marked the book as 4 stars but just dropped it to 3 because I can't get past the handling of the arrest and the resolution with the conspirators. I don't want to give any spoilers away so I can't get more specific than that.

Was the writing good and the mystery interesting, yes. But between the stuff I already mentioned and having one-to-three POVs too many, I feel comfortable with the 3 stars. The extra POVs weren't really that bad but I would have liked to have stayed with either Manon or Davy and had the story unfold from their POVs instead.

All this being said, I will certainly still read the next in the series. I like Manon. Flawed, bitchy, rude, assholish Manon.

Thanks to the publisher, and NetGalley, for the opportunity to read and review this book. ( )

I liked Persons Unknown even more than the first. Some great insights on human behavior. Manon and Fly's relationship is fragile and I can't help but root for them because it is so beautiful. An issue that I noticed with Missing, Presumed and this book is the conclusion to the mystery, it's a bit anti-climatic, but the lead up to it is outstanding and the character development so good that I can overlook that slight flaw. Maybe I just wanted to see one of the characters get their due and that didn't happen. I will definitely be reading the third in the series. So sad to hear of Steiner's death, huge loss as she was so talented. Sadly there will not be a fourth in the series ( )

I liked the mystery in this and the character development. The momentum kind of putters out near the end, which is unfortunate, but overall I enjoyed it. ( )

If you, like me, are confused about Mannon’s pregnancy, it is revealed. (I kept thinking I forgot something from the first book). Family is hard. Love is gut wrenching. ( )

Manon Bradshaw returns in a gripping police procedural that hits her very close to home.

In Susie Steiner’s previous novel, Missing, Presumed, Detective Manon Bradshaw adopted young Fly Dent, left orphaned with the deaths of his mother and his brother, Taylor. In Persons Unknown, Manon and Fly, Manon’s sister Ellie and Ellie’s toddler son Solomon have left central London and taken up residence together in a house in Cambridgeshire. Manon, several months pregnant, is desk-bound and working cold cases. Having given up on the notion of finding a suitable male life-partner, she has opted for artificial insemination. When a young, very wealthy banker from London dies of a stab wound in a nearby park, Manon—who is not part of the investigative team—finds herself on the outside looking in and suffering a shock when facts come to light connecting Ellie to the victim, Jon-Oliver Ross. Then the investigation—which is being led by her colleagues Harriet Harper and Davy Walker under the direction of Detective Chief Superintendent Gary Stanton—takes an even more alarming turn when Fly, caught on CCTV footage in the park at the time of the murder, is arrested. Manon, fed up with the physical and emotional burden of her pregnancy, rattled by guilt over Fly’s obvious unhappiness with the move to Cambridgeshire, and incensed by how Fly is being treated in custody, embarks against policy on an off-the-books investigation and soon finds herself stumbling along a dangerous path toward several unpleasant truths, one of which has the power to shatter her faith in what she thought were solid family ties. Manon Bradshaw, with her impulsive, intuitive bull-in-a-china-shop investigative approach, is someone with whom the reader instantly connects and comes to care about, as a cop, as a woman, and as a mother. The London setting, expertly evoked, drips with atmosphere. Persons Unknown is a carefully crafted, smart and engrossing entertainment: a complex tale of corruption full of twists and turns, briskly paced, and bustling with sympathetic characters whose pain and daily struggles are real. ( )