And So It Becomes Clear This Is An Open World "Locked Room" Series. This book largely follows the format of the first one in the series, and happens just a few days later in the world timeline. In other words, while still dealing with the repercussions - good and bad - from the first book, our detective is now thrust into *another* mystery where she is in an essentially "locked room" open world environment - she has quite a bit of area to work in (as do our perpetrators), but it is an area isolated off from the "main" world. This comes to bear in good and bad ways, though at least in this entry another variant on the theme is introduced... and again, the moves and countermoves this particular variant introduce open up their own possibilities. The main problems from the first book - the repetitive repetition of the detective's motives - are largely still in play here, though this time at least a few of the repetitions give us a bit more of the backstory for the motivations, and thus a reprieve from the near copy/paste verbatim repetitions that seemed so prevalent in Book 1. But... the things that made the first book so good, specifically how the scenery itself very nearly becomes its own actual character as it is described so vividly and is so intrinsic to the story here, are *also* still in play here. Indeed, with the clear theme now established for this series, perhaps that is one of the more intriguing aspects going forward.... how can Smith manage to keep putting this same person in these same situations and keep them different enough? Based on this book, I for one am looking forward to seeing how he pulls it off again. Very much recommended.
Reviewed by Jeff Sexton on
Reading updates
- 20 September, 2023: Started reading
- 22 September, 2023: Finished reading
- 22 September, 2023: Reviewed