Book Review: I CAME BACK FOR YOU

Title: I Came Back For You

Author: Kate White

Publisher: Thomas & Mercer

Pages: 299

My GoodReads Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

Bree Winter, 53, is living in Uruguay with her partner, Sebastian. She is in a good place and healing from the trauma of her past life. Eight years ago, her college-going daughter Melanie was killed by a ruthless serial killer, Calvin Ruck. In the aftermath of that horror, Bree and her husband Logan Chase drifted apart as he sought to manage his grief through infidelity.

In the present time, Logan has donated an enormous sum of money towards two scholarships and the renovation of the editorial office of the college’s literary magazine, both in the name of Melanie. Around this time, Ruck, who is serving time for his crimes, has admitted to killing two other women, while asserting that he didn’t kill Melanie.

Now Bree and Logan are thrust once again into the nightmare. She flies up to New York to attend the reception in honour of the scholarships, and begins her own investigation into who might have wanted her daughter dead.

 

The story is written in the first-person present-tense PoV of Bree.

 

WHAT I LIKED:

It was good to see a protagonist in her 50s. The fact that she is older than Sebastian by two years is also unconventional and welcome.

Logan came out reasonably well-drawn. Despite the infidelity, he appeared to be a decent character. Bree too came out strong as a mother, torn asunder by grief and desperate for closure, particularly in the second half of the book. The first half, not so much. Given the situation, I liked the note on which the book ended. It made me feel connected to the mother and daughter, after a whole book of struggling with both characters.

There was a smattering of Spanish words and phrases in the chapters set in Uruguay, that I liked.

 

WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE:

There was far too much filler stuff. The book could have been a lot thinner. The scenes in Uruguay seemed like so much filler. The only reason why it has been put there is probably to justify the title, I came back for you. She came back to New York all the way from Uruguay.

The pace improved only when Bree began her own investigation at the 41 percent mark. But only slightly. Then the pace dropped again, then increased at the 46 percent mark. Then it dropped again, and re-surfaced at 51 percent.

While the author built up Logan, Sebastian remained vague. It didn’t help that we meet him in person on page 1, where he flies off to Buenos Aires, and then we only see him through phone calls, texts and emails. We meet him again at the 96 percent mark. Even Melanie came off as insubstantial. Considering that the whole book was about her parents struggling with grief, we don’t get to see much of her personality. The flashbacks relating to her don’t help.

The challenge that befalls Bree at the 67 percent mark doesn’t seem particularly dangerous.

WHAT DIDN’T WORK:

The writing was good but there were far too many flashbacks, not all of them very relevant to the story. Many of the flashbacks relate to Logan and their marriage. It got in the way of building tension in the present.

The trajectory of the relationships wasn’t hard to predict. In many ways, I saw this book as women’s fiction as much as a murder mystery. Bree spent a long time trying to get a grip on her feelings for her ex and her current partner.

There were some questions that remained unanswered. For instance, why does a particular character lock Bree in the basement office of the literary magazine? Also, why doesn’t the killer kill Bree when they have the chance, despite knowing that she has figured it all out?

 

ALL SAID AND DONE: The book should have been shorter. As a mystery, it could have been a lot tighter.

(I read this book on NetGalley. Thank you to the author, the publisher and NetGalley.)