After a possessive man kills his wife and kidnaps their young daughter, Detectives Khalaji and Yoon must race to find her before it's too late.

Got to say I'm becoming frustrated with the shorter and shorter length of each novel, because it's impacting on the quality of each instalment in the series. In this case, the crime portion of the novel felt significantly underdeveloped, simply because there weren't enough words given to the book as a whole to allow it to be developed to the extent it deserved. The author is capable of much better, but once again there's that sense of rushing just to churn out another book, when, with a little more time, it could have reached its full potential.

It's not that there needs to be more physical intimacy between the main characters, because there's a lot of fluffy moments, and we see their relationship developing in sweet ways. But at this point it feels like the plot of the series is incidental to spending time with the MCs. This approach works well for part of a book, but when it feels like most of the book is filler, that's a sign to me that the plot needs to be stronger (or in this case better developed and given more page time).

I also dispute that 'going dark' is 'expected' but not necessarily 'right', when it comes to plot events. What matters is the care given to the characters' emotional experiences and the time taken to explore the after-effects of trauma. If such a huge proportion of the page count can be given over to smut scenes, it's disappointing to me that coping with trauma isn't seen as having the same level of significance or purpose for the series. Everyone has a certain level of darkness they're prepared to explore through writing, but there's no need to patronise those who choose to go darker, because dark things do exist in life, and they're as worthy of exploration as bloated sex scenes.

absolutely nothing *~*researchy*~* to see here; an ongoing reading list
1. A Study in Scarlet 2.5/5
2. The Hound of the Baskervilles 5/5
3. The Adventure of the Final Problem 4/5
4. Bath Haus 4.5/5
5. The Forest of Stolen Girls 4/5
6. The Red Palace 2/5
7. The Silence of Bones 1/5
8. Lay Your Sleeping Head 4/5
9. Carved in Bone 5/5
10. Lies with Man 3/5
11. Howtown 2/5
12. The Hidden Law 2/5
13. The Death of Friends 3/5
14. The Burning Plain 3.5/5
15. Rag and Bone 4/5
16. Pretty Pretty Boys 2/5
17. Three Nick Nowak Mysteries 5/5
18. Three More Nick Nowak Mysteries 3/5
19. Two Nick Nowak Novellas 4/5
20. A Time For Secrets 5/5
21. Murder Book 5/5
22. From the Ashes 4/5
23. Bloodlines 4/5
24. Lucky Days 4/5
25. Gifts Given 5/5
26. Heart's Desire 1/5
27. Broken Cord 4/5
28. The Cardigans 4/5
29. Junk Shop Blues 4/5
30. Changing Faces 5/5
31. It's Witchcraft 5/5
32. Where There's Smoke 5/5
33. Cult of Personality 4/5
34. Collateral Damage 3/5