When I started reading this book I was really into it. It begins with the murder of a young girl. There is clearly something suspicious surrounding who she was and there are hints that she was trying to protect another person. We don't immediately find out who the other person was but we are given enough information to keep things interesting. In addition to that, there are multiple POV's related to the reader so we even get a glimpse into the thoughts of the killers. The multiple POV writing continues as the book goes on. During the first few chapters I was really interested in the attraction between Scarlett and Marcus. Marcus was mysterious, intense and a crusader for justice. Check, check, check, sounded like things were going somewhere. Scarlett is strong, beautiful and driven. Again, I thought the combination was going to be dynamic. And when Scarlett and Marcus are actually in a scene together, the chemistry was tantalizing and really good.
The problem with this book became quickly apparent. The murder of Tala rapidly shifts from the central focus of the story and the author starts focusing on all these other things. There is a subplot with Marcus' newspaper and their covert work to take down bad guys. There is a lot of airtime given to the Marcus' family issues and complications at work. From reading some other reviews I think that what happened is that you have to read the first book in this series. If you start with this book, you are jumping into the middle of all these storylines when you might be expecting the book to start from a point that you can follow. This book is supposed to be a standalone in the series but it really isn't. If you don't read the first book first, you'll be lost. I can't really give a totally fair assessment of this book because I started here in the series and I just couldn't catch up.
**ARC provided by Publisher**
Like with all of her books you really should if not need to read the previous book in the series. They tend to follow a pattern. Marcus' story began in Closer than You Think, the first book in the series.
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