#Review - Girls Like Us by Cristina Alger #Thrillers #Mystery

Series: Standalone
Format: E-Galley, 288 pages
Release Date: July 2, 2019
Publisher: G.P Putnam Sons
Source: Publisher
Genre: Thrillers

From the celebrated and bestselling author of The Banker’s Wife, worlds collide when an FBI agent investigates a string of grisly murders on Long Island that raises the impossible question: What happens when the primary suspect is your father?

FBI Agent Nell Flynn hasn’t been home in ten years. Nell and her father, Homicide Detective Martin Flynn, have never had much of a relationship. And Suffolk County will always be awash in memories of her mother, Marisol, who was brutally murdered when Nell was just seven.

When Martin Flynn dies in a motorcycle accident, Nell returns to the house she grew up in so that she can spread her father’s ashes and close his estate. At the behest of her father’s partner, Detective Lee Davis, Nell becomes involved in an investigation into the murders of two young women in Suffolk County. The further Nell digs, the more likely it seems to her that her father should be the prime suspect—and that his friends on the police force are covering his tracks. Plagued by doubts about her mother’s murder—and her own role in exonerating her father in that case—Nell can’t help but ask questions about who killed Ria Ruiz and Adriana Marques and why. But she may not like the answers she finds—not just about those she loves, but about herself.

Story Locale: Southampton, Palm Beach

 

 

Cristina Alger's Girls Like Us is the story of 28-year old Nell Flynn, an FBI Agent who is on leave from the FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit for the funeral of her father, Suffolk County Homicide Detective Martin Flynn, who died in what is believed to be a motorcycle accident. It's hard for Nell to return home to the place where her mother was brutally murdered. It's even harder not knowing if she will have a job once her shoulder heals from where she was injured in the line of duty. 

With Nell on paid medical leave, her father's former partner and high school classmate Detective Lee Davis, asks Nell to consult on the case of two apparent murder victims. As she investigates, she can't help but noticed the connection of the new murder case to the one her dad worked on last year. Could her father be involved? To make matters worse, the men that she's known since she was a child may be involved, as well as numerous other corrupt officers of Suffolk County.

Nell soon begins to wonder if her mother's death is being covered up and the real killer has been right in front of her all this time. As the pieces of the puzzle begin to fall into place, Nell begins to wonder how far the people involved in the case will go to keep their secrets hidden. “Girls Like Us” told in a first person present tense narrative, but I, unfortunately, am going against the grain with my review. I thought the villains were pretty clear, and the mystery was pretty predictable as to what actually happened. 

Perhaps I've been reading too many murder mysteries that I formed my own opinion before the author has a chance to reveal her secrets. I liked Nell as a character. She's independent, can do whatever any man can do, and doesn't need to prove herself to anyone. She desires justice for the dead girls and doesn't care that they were once escorts. They were still human beings, and everyone deserves justice. I found the estrangement between her and her father regrettable. 

It hurts knowing the person who you looked up to may have been someone else entirely, and kept secrets from you. But, the ten year distance between the two can never be given back. Especially now that he's dead and she's left picking up the pieces of his life.  This story also touches on the subject of human trafficking which is a HUGE issue in this country. Literally thousands of boys and girls disappear every year into the dark web of dirty money, and God knows where else. While I hate stepping into politics, I damn sure wish that politicians would finally get together and solve this disease that is infecting our country. 

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