Mystery and domestic drama misses the mark.

A wife and mother of three, Rachel Baker, disappears on her way to work one morning. As is typical, her husband is the primary suspect especially once the police find that he was having an affair and that Rachel had purchased some plane tickets to make an escape.

FBI Agent Eva Rae Thomas and her boyfriend, Detective Matt Miller, investigate and interview everyone connected to Rachel and her husband, John. Rachel's mother and sister are wild with worry and are convinced that John has killed Rachel. John hides the children from his mother-in-law and everything gets really ugly -- then Rachel's body is found.

Told in a past and present narrative with the murder case being foremost, the secondary story line is the voice of a little girl who, along with her sisters, is being horribly abused by a psycho mother.
I don't imagine anyone will be surprised by the connection. In fact, the entirety of this plot is predictable and overwrought. The dialog is repetitive and full of melodrama and angst as everyone is so overcome all the time with emotion. The detective work seems superficial, and Eva Rae and Matt do a lot of running around accomplishing little, and also being just a beat too late.

I did not realize that this was the 14th in a series when I requested the audiobook from NetGalley. Jumping into this at this point proved merely a minor irritant as I failed to appreciate the one-dimensional characters regardless of what could have been the backstory. The rapid wrap up at the end and the set up for the next book left me feeling underwhelmed.

Thank you for granting access to the ARC but I doubt I will read any other books in this series. ( )