The Binding Room by Nadine Matheson #blogtour #bookreview #netgalley

Thank you Hanover Square Press/Netgalley, #partner, for the advanced copy of The Binding Room in exchange for my honest review.

Today, I’m so happy to be a tour stop on the blog tour for The Binding Room. Thank you Hanover Square Press for inviting me to participate.

Publisher: Hanover Square Press

Published: July 12, 2022

Summary:

Detective Anjelica Henley confronts a series of ritualistic murders in this heart-pounding thriller about race, power and the corrupt institutions that threaten us

When Detective Anjelica Henley is called to investigate the murder of a popular preacher in his own church, she discovers a second victim, tortured and tied to a bed in an upstairs room. He is alive, but barely, and his body shows signs of a dark religious ritual.

With a revolving list of suspects and the media spotlight firmly on her, Henley is left with more questions than answers as she attempts to untangle both crimes. But when another body appears, the case takes on a new urgency. Unless she can apprehend the killer, the next victim may just be Henley herself.

Drawing on her experiences as a criminal attorney, Nadine Matheson deftly explores issues of race, class and justice through an action-packed story that will hold you captive until the last terrifying page.

My thoughts:

Last year, I read Nadine Matheson’s debut crime fiction novel, The Jigsaw Man, and I have been waiting for the next book to come out. I love that book and so not only was The Binding Room a most anticipated read this year, but my expectations for the book were pretty high. Luckily, I can say this book totally delivers…and I just hope there are more books coming!

While this book could be read as a stand-alone, I really feel that you are going to have a much richer reading experience if you read the first book. Yes, both books are a bit on the longer side, but trust me when I say that they are totally all-consuming reads. You don’t realize how long they are once you are in the middle of them because you become so invested in what is going on.

This latest installment is really quite dark and unsettling, and I found myself unsure how all the different threads were going to tie together, but once they did, I could not read fast enough to see where they would ultimately end up. As with the first book, there are some rather gruesome scenes that we are privy to, so this is definitely not a book for the faint of heart…but I happen to love these types of books – they remind me of the Lars Kepler series, which is a huge favorite of mine. This turns into quite a game of cat and mouse as the team tries to catch a killer before someone else winds up dead, and it really kept me on the edge of my seat until the final resolution.

As the book picks up shortly after the first book ends, we see the main characters struggling to deal with the trauma they endured when we last saw them. I loved that this wasn’t brushed away or forgotten, but rather still an on-going thing. This is why I love reading series, and why I’m such a firm believer in reading series in order – you get that continued character development. It makes the characters, particularly Henley and Ramouter, all the more real and relatable. These two are also dealing with personal stuff and I loved that we see how that is affecting their work. I hope that we continue to see the progress of these side stories as the series continues.

This book kept me totally invested from start to finish. Yes, it is long, but even when I wasn’t reading it, I was thinking about it. And when the pieces finally started coming together, I really had a hard time putting the book down. Nothing here is extra – everything we are given is used and it really is so mind-boggling when you stop and think back over that. I’m in awe of this author’s creativity and plotting skills and I cannot wait to see what she gives us next!

Books in this series: