Well, this one started with a bang, or more accurately, a body folded up in a metal locker. And from that moment on, His Perfect Crime didn’t let up.
FBI Agent Emily Slate is walking back into the job with the weight of trauma strapped to her shoulders like a flak vest. She’s grieving the loss of her husband and still reeling from blowing the biggest case of her career and now she’s being sent to Stillwater, where the local cops are more concerned with politics than, oh, I don’t know, solving a murder.
Emily gets pushback from the start, but she’s not the type to slink off quietly. She’s strong, resourceful, and absolutely determined to prove herself - not to them, but to herself. And when the good ol’ boys try to shut her down, she finds work-arounds. Every. Single. Time.
The pacing here is tight, fast out of the gate and building with every chapter until you’re practically yelling lock the doors NOW! by the end. I couldn’t guess who the killer was (though of course, I side-eyed the husband). But this guy? He was slick. It genuinely surprised me, which is rare.
Liam Coll was another surprise. At first, I didn’t trust him. He was too cozy with the Chief, and the Chief was sketchy from page one. But Liam got his head on straight and turned out to be the partner Emily didn’t know she needed. As for Chief Burke? Let’s just say he got exactly what he deserved. Perp-walked right out of his own office. I may have cackled. Just a little.
The real heart of this book, though, is Emily herself. Her trauma, the loss, the self-doubt, the desperate need to prove she still belongs, it’s the thread that runs through the whole thing. She’s not just solving a case. She’s clawing her way back from a place where a lot of people wouldn’t even try. That’s what made this one stand out to me.
This was my first Alex Sigmore book, and I’m already hunting down the rest of the Emily Slate series. The writing was smooth and smart, detailed when it mattered, clean and fast when it didn’t, and the suspense crept up so gradually that I didn’t realize how hooked I was until I was staying up late to finish it.
I highly recommend this book. Great lead, tight plot, solid twists. Hoping in the next book Emily is just as strong, maybe pulls Liam into the FBI, and once again opens with “Oh no! Someone is dead!” and ends with “RUN.”
