Reviewed by Amanda on
I could probably sum up The Stranger You Seek in one word: masterful. If you think you can guess who is behind the murders, you are wrong. Even knowing that the killer was going to be someone I did not expect, I was still bowled over to the point of disbelief. The reveal of the killer’s identity flips you over and makes you question everything you thought you knew. And that’s not the only surprise in store. But I won’t tell you what that surprise is.
Keye Street is a fabulously flawed character. I like flawed characters because no one is perfect, and when you find flaws, you find humanity and the ability to relate. Keye is not quite as flawed or tragic as some of my favorite characters such as Sara Linton and Will Trent from Karin Slaughter’s various series (incidentally enough, these also set in Georgia) but there were points during the book where I felt a kinship, an I understand your inner struggles even without experiencing them myself. We don’t learn a lot about Keye’s past, but what we do learn proves fascinating and incomplete. Though the other characters were developed, there were times when the relationship between them and Keye seemed murky, as though there was more to it than we were ever told. However, this is only a negative if the next books in the series don’t explore these relationships and back stories.
The Stranger You Seek is one of those books that shows you a series of seemingly unrelated events, only to have them converge upon each other in the end. With the abundance of paranormal reads, I forget that sometimes a good mystery is just as good. I will definitely be reading the next Keye Street book.
Reading updates
- Started reading
- 3 October, 2011: Finished reading
- 3 October, 2011: Reviewed