Good old fashioned detective work

I was very much in the mood for a good old fashioned detective novel where clues are unearthed piece by piece and slowly the mystery unfolds. Land of Shadows was the perfect read for that. Just a great detective slowly unraveling the threads of a crime to lead her back to the culprit.

Elouise “Lou” Norton grew up poor in Los Angeles with her older sister and a hardworking mother. When her sister goes missing, both Lou and her mother’s lives are changed forever. When Lou got older, she joined the LAPD and eventually rose through the ranks to become a detective. All the while, she never forgets about her sister Tori and hope that one day she’ll be able to solve her murder/disappearance. The hardest thing is just not knowing what happened.

When Lou pulls a case involving the strangulation of a young black woman, she’s immediately that there are potential similarities to her sister’s case. She’s always motivated to solve her cases, but doubly so with this one. The murdered teenager was a model student and bright young women. However, when Lou digs deeper, she finds connections to plenty of shady people and the field of suspects is packed.

Throw in some personal relationship issues and a brand new detective from Colorado that she’s suddenly saddled with, and you have the makings of a very enjoyable and compelling read. I’ve already picked up the second book in the series from the library and I hope it’s just as good as the first!