I found this a bit of a departure from Padgett’s two Blue books that I’ve enjoyed, though this series comes with higher recommendations. It’s a more traditional mystery story, though the main character is still a far cry from your average sleuth.

Bo Bradley is an investigator into child abuse with the social services but her main characteristic is that she suffers from manic depression. I think Padgett did a pretty good job of portraying someone with a mental illness without making them out to be a complete loony. I liked Bo a lot and though I thought the story was a bit thin on the ground at times I’ll be looking for the next book in the series. It seemed that Bo had too much of a personal connection to the case she was investigating in this book - it seemed as if the author put all their cards on the table in one book.