A review by emleemay
Leave No Trace by Jo Callaghan

2.0

‘Oh my God,’ said Kat [...] How could she have been so blind?

Good question, Kat. How could you?

I was so excited for this book after reading [b:In the Blink of An Eye|62072146|In the Blink of An Eye (Kat and Lock, #1)|Jo Callaghan|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1668617861l/62072146._SY75_.jpg|95967285] earlier this year. I loved the characters and thought the concept of an AI police detective was both interesting and quite plausible. The dynamic between DCS Kat Frank and AIDE Lock was fantastic.

Unfortunately, this sequel gave off the impression of being rushed and poorly-edited. I saw through the mystery immediately, quickly putting the pieces together and figuring out not only who did it, but also why.

It was then very frustrating-- not to mention, boring --to watch the detectives pursuing red herrings and being clueless. I think I'm of fairly average intelligence, so I do expect trained detectives to get there faster than I do.

I actually felt like there was a lot of incompetence all round here, especially with the male characters. I do like all the strong women leading in this book, but I'm not sure why the men have to be either bad or complete doofuses (doofi?). DI Rayan Hassan is so useless AGAIN that it's hard to believe he got this job. When he isn't salivating over Professor Okonedo like a little puppy, he's stubbornly pushing stupid theories. Which was his role in the previous book also-- to keep repeatedly insisting someone did the crime when everyone else can see it's clear they couldn't have.

McLeish, too, is a total fool. It seems his only job is to sit at a desk and bitch at others.

Even Lock, whom I love, had way too many “Huh, humans make no sense” moments in this book. As I said in my review of [b:In the Blink of An Eye|62072146|In the Blink of An Eye (Kat and Lock, #1)|Jo Callaghan|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1668617861l/62072146._SY75_.jpg|95967285], if ChatGPT can understand an idiom, then this sophisticated AI should definitely be able to.

Also, while I think myself and the author are probably politically on a similar page (as far as I can tell), even I found the messages here extremely heavy-handed. I felt a bit like I was being lectured to at times. All men are awful or stupid (or dead). And, despite the fact that this book has a female DCS, a female Professor leading the AI experiment, a female minister commissioning the project, a female local businesswoman, and a nonbinary pathologist, all of them seem convinced that men are out to get them.

Of course, the men in this book are so stupid that offensive things just fall out of their slack mouths, seemingly so that the women can give them a telling off.

I think better editing would have polished some of these themes and, had it not been so heavy-handed,
SpoilerI may not have so easily figured out what the culprit's reasoning was
. It's important to write about sexism and misogyny, but I don't think it was done very well here.

Yet, I do have hope for this series as Kat and Lock are such strong characters. I know I won't be able to resist reading the next book. I hope it's better.