On the fifteenth anniversary of the murder of her younger sister Caitlin, Nikki Cassidy, now an agent with the FBI, returns to her small Ohio hometown, only to find out that another young girl has just been taken. But with Caitlin’s killer behind bars, are the parallels to her sister’s case just a coincidence, or is something more sinister at work?
With such a promising premise, I am actually shocked at how average this book managed to be. Seeing it was the first in a series featuring FBI agent Nikki Cassidy, I had high hopes for it, but I figured out pretty quickly that I was in for a major disappointment.
Part of this might be due to the absolutely false book description. From the name of Nikki‘s hometown (Huntsdale, not Groveton), to the fact that the body found in the woods does *not* belong to Natalie Jarvis, and that there is no note addressed to Nikki next to it, it almost seems like I read a completely different book. Furthermore, while the book‘s title is amazing, there actually already exist not one but two books by that same name (one was written by Amy Reed, one by Alex Urquhart, and both were published in 2017), which probably could have been avoided.
As for the actual content of the book, I found it to be slightly below your average mystery/suspense.
My main gripe with the book is that it seems to assume its readers are either of below average intelligence or have the attention span of a three-year old, judging by the repetitiveness of the writing. First, every single detail of the case is repeated seemingly at least once in every chapter for the first half of the book, mostly under the guise of Nikki talking to a new person. To make matters worse, anytime someone on the periphery of the story is mentioned, we are repeatedly reintroduced to them: not only are we reminded of their full names (yes, again and again), but most often also to their occupation, lest we ever forget that, for example, „Tommy Thompson“ (yes, that‘s his name, though I‘m not sure about the spelling since I listened to the audiobook) is actually „District Attorney Thommy Thompson“. If your reader still needs to be reminded the third or tenth time a name is mentioned, they are probably the wrong audience for a mystery novel. Not only does this repetitiveness take away from the suspense, it also gets irritating quickly.
As for Nikki herself, while I appreciated that she is unapologetically career-driven, she is actually not that great at her job, but comes across as insubordinate and gullible; for all her pride in her ability to read people, she gets it wrong all the time, which does not humble her one bit. Not surprisingly (but annoyingly), she frequently goes off on her own to follow leads, and even hijacks a press conference by giving away all all the details of her case when you‘d think playing your cards close to the vest is investigation 101. It‘s not even clear why she even needs other agents there with her (one serves to give her relationship advice, while the other is mostly comic relief), as none of them actually really do anything of substance for most of the book.
The underlying mystery itself sounded far more interesting in the somewhat misleading description than it played out to be in the actual book. To be fair, that also might have at least a little to do with the questionable investigative tactics displayed. Conflicts of interest aside, it feels like none of these supposedly highly trained agents know how to behave during an investigation (for example, while securing a potential crime scene - unmistakable, complete with open door and blood on the floor - they amicably chitchat with each other, all while the culprit might still be on the scene and they‘re supposed to secure the perimeter). But on the other hand, there isn‘t exactly a criminal mastermind at work, either, so maybe it evens itself out? (Who goes through the trouble of setting up a website on the dark web only to choose a password as simple as a name? Not even Google would allow that these days!)
Finally, there is a completely unnecessary romance angle that takes up way too much space, though Nikki‘s fiancé is as dull as dishwater, insensitive (trying to get into her pants right after she talks about her dead sister), and beyond misogynistic. In fact, Nicki herself isn‘t even sure she loves him, and he adds nothing to the story. I actually found myself secretly hoping he was the killer just so she could shoot him in the end.
Tl;dr: a promising premise with a disappointing execution.
Thank you to NetGalley and Dreamscape Select for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.
„The Nowhere Girls“ is slated to be published on April 2, 2004.