Partway through this I thought it might turn out to be one of the most stunning mysteries I’d ever read but I felt it trailed off a bit towards the end and perhaps went on a little too long to acheive its full potential

The gimmick here is that the narrator Kay Farrow suffers from an achromatic eye condition which means that she can only perceive shades of grey and no colour at all. She makes her living as a black and white photographer and is following a group of street children and sex workers in San Francisco as material for her next book. One teenage boy she gets very close to turns up dismembered and Kay feels that no one will investigate his death properly if she doesn’t.

This is a cracking story on many levels, great descriptions of San Francisco, some very interesting characters, a fascinating premise for the story and a central character with a disability that becomes part of the tale and isn’t just a hook to hang a moral on. I’m glad to learn that Hunt has written a followup book Trick Shot that also features Kay as I’d like to see her again but this did feel very much like a standalone.