This thriller has a lot of characters in it, and I would think too many for the length of the book. There is a lot of jumping between points of view, which makes it difficult to grasp on to a particular character of interest.

The story has a fair enough pace, with suspicious characters all over the place, keeping you guessing about who was involved with the crime.

Having Molly as a freelance journalist/investigator felt odd, as Molly doesn’t have the credentials to be either (previous role: lawyer) and so I find her unrealistic as a reporter. However she has enough of her own worries, the stillbirth of her second child, a new home and new friendships to manage in order to keep her as an interesting character.

Sandy is the wayward child of a drug addict mother who has been forced out onto the street when her mother stole her savings for a hit, didn’t return and let the rent go unpaid for months. Out on the street with not a lot of options, she looks to a well to do high school tutor for assistance. When she meets with Hannah, it becomes clear that there’s more assistance that she can provide to Hannah, with her overbearing mother and shameful secrets, than the other way around.

Barbara is Hannah’s mother, and is as neurotic as they come. She cares little for her first born Hannah, rules with an iron fist and dotes on her son Cole. However Cole has had problems at school lately, and is drawing strange pictures at home and it looks like psychological intervention is the only way that Cole is going to get better. When her policeman husband Steve mentions that they need to sort out their marriage, Barbara is at her wits end trying to hold her marriage together, and fix her broken son.

The story comes to a fatal climax when all of the characters begin to understand who they are to the others, and truths are spilled more freely than the blood from the murdered child found at the river.