Emma (SCR)'s Review of One Child Alive (Rockwell and Decker, #3)

by Ellery Kane

One, two, three. She counts the bodies dragged from the burning beach house, smoke rising from their cotton pajamas, and remembers a fourth; red hair, freckles, clinging to his mother’s legs, begging to watch the fireworks a while longer. “Where’s the little boy?” she whispers…

In the ashes of the Fox family’s seafront vacation home, Olivia Rockwell can barely hold back her tears as she wonders who in the close-knit town of Fog Harbor could destroy such a warm, loving family. Then she spots a little green toy soldier in the sand and follows a set of small footprints along the beach to an abandoned lifeguard hut. Inside, she finds the youngest Fox child, Thomas. The only survivor…

Holding his trembling body close, Olivia promises to keep him safe. She knows the agony of losing family at such a young age. But the second Thomas catches sight of Detective Will Decker’s sliver police badge over her shoulder, the little boy’s scream pierces the night. Could the family have been targeted by someone sworn to protect them? Is anyone safe if the police themselves are the primary suspect?

Unsure who she can trust, Olivia keeps hold of the tiny horseshoe charm she finds at the scene and follows the trail deep into the web of lies surrounding this seemingly perfect family. But just as a tip-off from a local lighthouse-keeper puts the killer within reach, tragedy strikes: little Thomas is snatched from his bed.

Up against a calculating monster who seems to know her every weakness, Olivia must dig deeper than ever before to find this innocent child. But when one twisted killer becomes two, can she stay alive long enough to save him?

This review was originally posted on Star Crossed Reviews I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. Thank you to Bookouture for my copy of this book via netgalley and for letting me take part in this tour. While you could read this book as a standalone I think you would get a better experience if you read all three books. There’s quite a bit of background that leads up to this story.

Detective Will Decker and Doctor Olivia Rockwell are an excellent team. In the previous books you got to see more of Olivia’s profiles which I missed in this book. In this book it seemed like Olivia just got herself into trouble more than anything else.

The pace of this book is quite slow to start with but it really ramps up about half way through. I found myself speeding through the last half as I just needed to know what was going to happen.

Ellery is very good at keeping the killer hidden. I had no idea who the killer was except that I didn’t think it was any of the suspects Deck and JB had in their sights. They all seemed too obvious and nothing ever really fitted.

The side story of Olivia’s Dad is still intriguing me and I’m sure at some point (maybe the next book?) it will come to the forefront and I will devour that book as Ellery has kept me in suspense about this for too long!

One Child Alive (Rockwell and Decker, #3)

by Ellery Kane

Reviewed by Emma (SCR) on Sep 6, 2021

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