The Twist of a Knife

That...is not how I want to end a book feeling. The victim was so incredibly malicious to every person she ever encountered. You'd think that would make the death satisfying or at least less upsetting for the reader, but when you spend so much time hearing about how nasty she was, it's just dispiriting. The murderer was someone who survived an unjustly harsh prison sentence, got their life together and saw it threatened to disintegrate again, and then it DID. The ‘Native American' characterization (by a white author) made me uncomfortable (the audiobook narrator didn't help); I have no idea what Indigenous readers might think of it. He's had a tough upbringing but he's doing well, except he's fighting with his wife and he's spontaneously angry enough to be thoughtlessly violent? If he wasn't just another murder suspect, maybe it would feel like a fully fleshed out flawed human being instead of a suspect detail or two mixed in with something socially conscious. Maybe Horowitz was trying to be compassionate or just diverse in characters, but I'm not sure it landed? Having the protagonist in the hot seat as the suspect is NOT why I read this series. The crumb of further reveal about Hawthorne's backstory was not worth sitting through so much of this. Cara Grunshaw and lackey are unrelentingly unpleasant people that I wish we didn't keep coming back to; having Hawthorne best them in the end is not a satisfying enough reason to hear from and about them throughout the book. I just spent way too much of this book not having a good time. I think the next book is the final test for me: if there's a bit more about Hawthorne, if Anthony can get back to his regular Watsonian position, if we can take another break from Grunshaw,  if at least some ‘guest stars' can be something other than off-putting, I'll continue in the series. I started these books not really knowing why I was continuing, a definite maybe, but I'm getting closer to a firm ‘no'.