City of the Lost

In this first book of the "Rockton" series, Casey Duncan and her friend "escape" to Rockton, a place in the Canadian wilderness where people go to "disappear" when their lives are endangered. She is a police detective and immediately gets tossed into what could be a serial killer in their midst. A fascinating premise that starts off strong but ultimately done in by too many entanglements in the end.

When a mob connection comes back for her, and Casey's friend Diana is bedeviled by a crazy ex, they both apply and are accepted to go to Rockton. This place, completely off the grid and hidden from the outside world, has a small population of other escapees, usually just temporary residents. However, someone seems to be killing off the more vulnerable in a predictably horrible way, so Casey is enlisted by the police "chief" to investigate. The more she finds out, the stranger everything seems.

I really enjoyed the first three quarters of the book. Casey is a fascinatingly conflicted character and the town of Rockton a unique set up. Her rocky relationship with the grouchy current police chief there is really fun, as is her relationships with several others in the town, like Anders, the other member of the police "force". It is really fun how it all gets set up.

But then it is nearly ruined by the last quarter of the book, when Casey gets entangled other relationships.

I think it would have been way better if the gruff relationship with Eric, the police chief, had continued. The friction between them was really fun. But then, after an excruciatingly long and twisted warm up, they fall into bed and that all disappears. Ugh.

And the actual mystery was neatly wrapped up in a few pages. Well, to be honest, I'm not sure how neat it was, actually. I need to go back and reread the exposition, because I'm not sure I entirely buy it.

So, all in all, probably more like a 3.5. I'll probably give book 2 a try, to see how things work out.