Penny was almost a graduate cop, coping with her first up-close homicide. As she views the slashed bloody body sprawled in the road, she realizes that she knew the murder victim, and her mind flashes between horror and giddiness. He was the grown-up version of one of the three college brutes who wrecked her twin sister's life. When Penny recognized the dead man, she immediately thought of a murder occurring a few months before. Another of Nix’s rapists was also killed, this time with a baseball bat. Her first thought was that the two murders were connected.
Penny and Nicki, or Nix, were so close they could read each other's minds and finish each other's thoughts. When Nix was sexually assaulted by the three, she gave up on law school, abused drugs and moved away from her family and friends. Penny received a desperate message on her phone from her twin just before she died from an overdose, which was the impetus for changing her career from chef to cop-perhaps she could save another girl from a bad situation, even though she let her sister down.
Penny is ordered to secure the area, and as she tapes off the crime scene, she smells the herbal scent of a vape dispenser. At the end of an alley sits a very composed woman on a step covered with blood. Penny realizes that she is the murderer, and that the box cutter next to her is the murder weapon. She casually introduces herself as Thalia Gray. Penny bags the knife and begins the arrest but decides to let her go after Gray drops the word “sisters,” might she be Nix’s avenger?
As Penny deals with a suspension from the police force, her main goal is to find Thalia and explore her connection to Nix. Coping with her hippie-dippy elder brother and his teen hacker daughter, and Nix’s ex-boyfriend and Penny’s possible love interest are just distractions but also a possible good source for clues. Will Penny find Thalia and solve this mystery before the third guy is killed…and will she regret it if she does?
Joshilyn Jackson is the Queen of The Unreliable Narrator, and this novel does NOT disappoint. As soon as it was finished, I had to create the sub-title “Everything You Thought You Knew Was Wrong,” and restart it on page one. It was like reading a completely different book! You will be amazed at Jackson’s sleight-of-hand as she leads you down the tangled rabbit hole that is Thalia Gray’s world. This is absolutely series-worthy and I’d love to see Penny and Thalia teamed up again.
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