Title: In the Clearing (Tracy Crosswhite #3)
Author: Robert Dugoni
Format: Audible Audiobook (via Kindle Unlimited)
Narrator: Emily Sutton-Smith
Publisher: Brilliance Audio
Summary:
Detective Tracy Crosswhite has a skill, and a soft spot, for tackling unsolved crimes. Having lost her own sister to murder at a young age, Tracy has dedicated her career to bringing justice and closure to the families and friends of victims of crime.
So when Jenny, a former police academy classmate and protégé, asks Tracy to help solve a cold case that involves the suspicious suicide of a Native American high school girl forty years earlier, Tracy agrees. Following up on evidence Jenny’s detective father collected when he was the investigating deputy, Tracy probes one small town’s memory and finds dark, well-concealed secrets hidden within the community’s fabric. Can Tracy uphold the promise she’s made to the dead girl’s family and deliver the truth of what happened to their daughter? Or will she become the next victim?
My Thoughts:
The love interest that has been building in the first two books started to fail in this story. Their jobs just keep getting in the way, and it almost seems like they’ve grown apart just as quickly as they came together. I can’t say if this is why I no longer desire to continue this series, or if it’s more I can only handle this kind of mystery for so long before needing to move on.
What kind of mystery is this? The slow kind. The facts slowly come into place, there is a lot of the slow police work we don’t see in the popular cop shows. With the love interest fizzling, there wasn’t enough going on to really hold my attention and keep me wanting more.
The story also has many flashbacks since Tracy is trying to solve a cold case that had a finding…but the finding was not even believed by the investigating officer. A good friend has requested Tracy’s expertise on a case her father was primary on but had felt he was never able to solve. The back and forth in audio format sometimes took time to adjust to.
I only made it through because the cold case held some interest of what happened. I kept listening to find out who had killed the young girl. We are even lucky enough for the exact circumstances.