I received this book as a free, "Audible Original" for the month of February, 2019.
Pros:
- The story features a full ensemble cast
- The story plays out in 30 minute "episodes," making each reasonably digestible
- The story lacks a narrator, so every action must be portrayed either through dialogue or through sound effects. This can make it difficult to tell what's actually happening in a given scene
- The amount of tension that relies on the characters either not answering their phone / listening to messages in a timely manner is too high
- I was never really invested in the characters; I got through to the end out of a desire for completion and to see if my theory was correct, not due to emotional attachment to the characters.
- The "big reveal" at the very end of the story* doesn't really add to the narrative, other than make the killer a hair more tragic in retrospect.
- (nit-pick) The repeated use of the book's title and "stinger" at the start of each episode gets annoying
The book was fine for being free, but there were far too many issues to recommend it at any price (let alone full price). Perhaps I could have overlooked a lot of these issues if the book didn't commit a fatal flaw for mystery books: as a reader, I felt like I couldn't have guessed who the killer was based on the information provided. Ultimately, the book isn't so bad its good, or even so bad its interesting; it is just mediocre.
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* SPOILERS AHEAD:
The "big reveal" is that Dr. Buckley's father is being held in the same prison as the murderer, making the murderer's statement that, "the distance between her reality and his is too great," a bit ironic.
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