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A review by mnboyer
Maidens of the Cave by Lloyd Devereux Richards
4.0
Thank you to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. I greatly appreciated the opportunity to get to read something new, and be one of the first people to discuss this with others!
Forensic anthropologist tries to find a murderer... yes please! While this is the second book in a series, it is fair to say that you can jump right into this first book without having read the first (although, of course, one should aways read books in order... theoretically). Christine, our protagonist, works with the FBI and she's the kind of person who doesn't take "no" for an answer and sometimes bends the rules. I'm sure she'll have plenty of fans! But of course, there are some on her team who do not fully appreciate her behavior. But I digress.
Christine starts finding bodies all around a little college campus and things get pretty interesting. She starts realizing that the FBI "bro club" would rather just fill out some forms and toss them into a drawer, but she thinks she can find the killer. Of course, we believe in Christine and realize that she's going to get the case done. Are some of her methods unorthodox. Sure. Would it necessarily fly in contemporary standards ... maybe ... maybe not, but it certainly is fun to watch unfold.
The killer ends up having a tell and a bit of a pattern. The diagnosis is also seriously interesting. That made me round it up from 3 stars to 4 stars.
But why was I originally thinking 3 stars? Well, this is a bit procedural. It gets a little drawn out and sometimes the suspense becomes a bit "then this happened and then this and now this and this" and at moments it pulls you out of the "thriller" category. I'm not saying this isn't normal for a more procedural work -- just that it may be something not everyone loves (if you love this specific type of FBI crime solving then this is for you!).
Overall, I very much enjoyed it and I think this is going to do well with people who love:
-- strong female leads
-- crime procedurals
-- anthropological bends in crime solving
-- dark academia type books
-- series about crime
-- did I mention strong female leads?
4 out of 5 stars.
Forensic anthropologist tries to find a murderer... yes please! While this is the second book in a series, it is fair to say that you can jump right into this first book without having read the first (although, of course, one should aways read books in order... theoretically). Christine, our protagonist, works with the FBI and she's the kind of person who doesn't take "no" for an answer and sometimes bends the rules. I'm sure she'll have plenty of fans! But of course, there are some on her team who do not fully appreciate her behavior. But I digress.
Christine starts finding bodies all around a little college campus and things get pretty interesting. She starts realizing that the FBI "bro club" would rather just fill out some forms and toss them into a drawer, but she thinks she can find the killer. Of course, we believe in Christine and realize that she's going to get the case done. Are some of her methods unorthodox. Sure. Would it necessarily fly in contemporary standards ... maybe ... maybe not, but it certainly is fun to watch unfold.
The killer ends up having a tell and a bit of a pattern. The diagnosis is also seriously interesting. That made me round it up from 3 stars to 4 stars.
But why was I originally thinking 3 stars? Well, this is a bit procedural. It gets a little drawn out and sometimes the suspense becomes a bit "then this happened and then this and now this and this" and at moments it pulls you out of the "thriller" category. I'm not saying this isn't normal for a more procedural work -- just that it may be something not everyone loves (if you love this specific type of FBI crime solving then this is for you!).
Overall, I very much enjoyed it and I think this is going to do well with people who love:
-- strong female leads
-- crime procedurals
-- anthropological bends in crime solving
-- dark academia type books
-- series about crime
-- did I mention strong female leads?
4 out of 5 stars.