Reading much like an extended episode of CSI
, Smith’s repetitive debut chronicles the travails of Grace Descanso, a San Diego crime scene technician and single mother who once had a promising future in pediatric cardiology. After a deadly shooting at a crime scene, Grace is plunged into a cat-and-mouse game that forces her to confront her traumatic past. When her five-year-old daughter, Katie, is kidnapped and Grace receives a series of cryptic riddles, she races against the clock to save Katie. Grace must also uncover the dirty secrets of the Center for BioChimera, a biomedical research institution and hospital with ties to her past and Katie’s disappearance. Grace turns to her ex-lover, a CNN reporter, for help, and together they must figure out the full extent of a medical nightmare stretching from California to Guatemala. Despite a nail-biting premise, Smith can’t maintain the suspense, and the reader soon tires of following Grace as she solves riddle after riddle. Those familiar with thriller genre conventions may solve the mystery of Grace’s past long before it’s officially revealed. (Jan.)
