When I closed the flap of my Kindle after finishing this book, my husband looked over from his position on the couch and said “well?” I was silent long enough that he asked the question again and I finally replied, “I have no idea.” I sat on this review for a few days, hoping that more clarity would come to me, but readers I am sorry to tell you, I’m still pretty firmly in the “huh?!” camp.

Look for Her is the story of a cold case, the murder of Annalise Wood in 1976. Set in the idyllic English village of Lilling just outside of Cambridge, the crime was one of those that marked the village forever. Everyone became obsessed with finding the killer, and although one was never found, the case lingers in the institutional memory of the village itself. Most residents still know details off the top of their heads, and most have theories as to what really happened. It’s the very stuff that an episode of My Favorite Murder is made of, but man do I wish that Karen and Georgia were telling this story instead of how it played out.

Cold case investigators Morris Keane and Chloe Frohmann are determined to put this one to bed. They each have their own reasons that were clearly explored in other books previous to this one, and this is where I need to put the disclaimer that, until I was about 50 pages into this thing, I had no idea it wasn’t a standalone. So, if you are a reader of this series and you are furious at my grade and my stupidity in not following all the threads, please be aware of that. I may still be stupid, but I was also misled by the marketing. This is not a standalone book – there are too many references not explained and personal histories not clarified for that.

I’m always hesitant to go into any detail about suspense novels, because what constitutes spoilers is different from person to person. This book is no different, and so this review will be brief.

Ms. Winslow’s writing is lovely and she has a skill for setting the scene. I’ve spent a lot of time in that part of England and I could easily picture the cottages the characters were in, the lanes they drove down, and the way the culture of the village itself worked. I felt immersed, even though I was so deeply confused. The author’s skillful prose and my lack of knowledge of the previous books leads me to believe that my inability to connect with this work may be down to me and not Ms. Winslow, but with all that said, I have no idea what happened in the book. I think a crime was solved, but maybe not? We spend a lot of time in the PoV of a character that is not Morris or Chloe and how that person relates to the plot seems to shift a lot and I found myself so friggin disoriented, y’all. It was not a feeling I enjoyed.

In summary, Look for Her was not for me, nor would I recommend it to anyone who is not already invested in Morris and Chloe. Am I missing something? Have you read it? Help me, fellow readers!

Buy it at: Amazon/Barnes & Noble/iBooks/Kobo