And Now She's Gone by Rachel Howzell Hall

 

Welcome Back Booklovers! I'm back in the office and busier than ever lately which hasn't left a lot of time for reading. I wanted to read a mystery by a Black author and this mystery was different from the usual cozy mysteries I pick up. This reads more like a procedural too and it's been a few months since I've read one.

This one was a hard for me to get into. It's full of flashbacks and metaphors which sometimes caused me to miss what I read and I had to go back and re-read. The pacing was also slow and I was expecting something more fast paced. Plus I found myself detached from most of the characters. I don't necessarily need to relate anyone in a story but I do need to find them entertaining enough to spend several pages with.

This story follows PI Grayson(Gray) Sykes who is a PI on her first solo case. She's already stumbling through it when she finds herself relating to the missing woman Isabel Lincoln in several ways. This case brings up many horrible haunting memories for her that she's been trying to escape ever since rebuilding her life after leaving an abusive relationship. The threat of her ex is always looming over her as he still tries to She early on projects much of herself onto Isabel. And she's not the most prepared PI since she meets with her client without being ready to take notes, where's very bright colors on stakeouts, and makes careless mistakes. Just when you think you understand how this book is going to go it takes an unexpected twist.

I wish this book would've cut down on some of the descriptions of everything Gray ate and drank. She also suffers from chronic pain and at times feels like her body will shut down. This is depicted with several mentions of  her popping pills followed by her downing alcohol to try and dull her internal pain. I know authors do that to build up atmosphere but it tends to be repetitive after the umpteenth time it happens. At times the plot was too slow moving and contained some filler which I'm not a fan of in mysteries. 

For me the book didn't start to really pick up until after the 60% mark. After that I found the pacing to be steady and the action was continuous. Though that manic anxious feeling present throughout the story still remained.