Thursday, August 25, 2022

Long Gone

Title: Long Gone
Author: Joanna Schaffhausen
Published: August 9th 2022 by Minotaur Books
Format: Kindle, Hardcover, 304 pages
Genre: Police Procedural
Source: My thanks to Netgalley and the Publisher for the opportunity to read an advanced copy of this book.
Series: Detective Annalisa Vega #2

First Sentence: Prologue: When the other two didn’t come back for more than ten minutes, he went to look for them.

Blurb: Chicago detective Annalisa Vega shattered her life, personally and professionally, when she turned in her ex-cop father for his role in a murder. Her family can’t forgive her. Her fellow officers no longer trust her. So when detective Leo Hammond turns up dead in a bizarre murder, Annalisa thinks she has nothing to lose by investigating whatever secrets he hid behind the thin blue line.

Annalisa quickly zeroes in on someone who had good reason to want Hammond dead: a wealthy, fast-talking car salesman who’d gotten away with murder once and wasn’t about to let Hammond take a second shot. Moe Bocks remains the number one suspect in his girlfriend’s brutal unsolved death, and now he’s got a new woman in his sights—Annalisa’s best friend.

Annalisa is desperate to protect her friend and force Bocks to pay, either for Hammond’s death or his earlier crime. But when no one else believes the connection, she takes increasingly risky chances to reveal the truth. Because both Hammond and Bocks had secrets to die for, and if she doesn’t untangle them soon, Annalisa will be next. (GoodReads)

My Opinion: Though the previous book was released a year ago, in book years, that is a long time, and I wished Joanna Schaffhausen had done a better job in refreshing the reader's memory. There are bits and pieces sprinkled throughout, but it would have been easier to give a paragraph review and then add reminders along the way.

As for the plot, it was at a mediocre pace that I thought was never going to end, and by the midway point, I was losing track of the members of the “fantastic four” and everyone else thrown in as a diversion. Annalisa Vega, as a detective, is not impressing me and I find her to be a bit on the repetitious and one-dimensional side.

Will I continue with the series? Probably not. I enjoyed the Ellery Hathaway series and had hoped Annalisa Vega would spark the same interest, but that did not happen.

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