Review: A Map of the Dark by Karen Ellis

A Map of the Dark by Karen Ellis
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I received a copy of this via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.  This was published in 2018, so I listened to the audiobook, which was very good.

This is perfect for fans of Criminal Minds, NCIS, CSI, etc, it reads just like an episode of those types of shows. Someone goes missing and FBI agent Elsa begins the hunt to find them. In this case her unsub preys on teenage girls, and Elsa teams up with local police officer Lex to track down and find the missing girls. In addition to the case, we also follow Elsa's journey through her own childhood trauma as her father is terminally ill. The stress of her father's approaching death and the case force Elsa to face her own childhood trauma and bring up demons from her past.

As a fan of crime drama television, I enjoyed this. The characters had a good amount of baggage they each had to work through. This aided in the character development, which I thought was pretty good. As far as plot goes, I didn't find this terribly suspenseful. I won't spoil the mystery/thriller part, but I did find this fairly predictable. As stated above it plays out much like the crime shows I mentioned. Don't get me wrong I highly enjoy those shows and watch them regularly, but I find those fairly predictable as well.

If you like lighter less violent, non-creepy thrillers, this is a good read. I'm looking forward to reading the next book in the series. I will say there are quite a few things that could be trigger warnings in this book: child abuse, cutting, physcological abuse, kidnapping, drug use and abuse. Reader be warned.

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