I like finding new authors or taking a chance on a book. Such was the case with the newly released You Can Go Home Now by Michael Elias.

Nina Karim is a tough Queens detective. Ask her why she became a cop and she'll give you her stock answer - but not the truth. The truth is she wants revenge on the man who killed her father. Until she hunts him down, she works cold cases. A disturbing pattern emerges as she peruses the latest stack of files. Dead men - and all their widows were in the same shelter.

Right off the bat, I liked Nina - her irreverence for authority, her drive for answers and her own brand of justice. I'm a sucker for troubled lead characters. Supporting players were just as well drawn. Nina's boyfriend, a loan shark is more often the voice of reason. But he too is happy to bend rules.

Elias is a screenwriter and that skill added wonderfully to the 'readability' of the book. (It kind of reads like a movie) The emotions, twists, turns and action all leapt off the page. The dialogue, the investigations, the settings all really well done. And there's lots of current social issues woven in to the plot. It moves along at a good pace. There are a few plot pieces that I wondered about, but didn't detract from my enjoyment of the book.

But what I liked the most? Nina. She was a fantastic protagonist. And I'd like to hope that the little opening left in the final pages is enough to bring Nina (and Bobby B.) back for a second book.

Gentle readers - there are some triggering scenes and topics in this novel. ( )

You Can Go Home Now by Michael Elias is a so-so violent, dark, gritty procedural.

Nina Karim is a detective who has a series of cold case homicides on her desk and only anger and revenge in her heart. The cold cases all involve men who were killed when their widows were living in Artemis, a battered women's shelter. Nina decides to go undercover and enters Artemis, searching for any connection to the cold case murders. Nina is doing her job, but her real and only true goal as a police officer is to find sniper who killed her father when she was a teen in 1999 and take out her wrath and find revenge on him. Her father was a doctor at an abortion clinic and was targeted by a group that called itself the Army of God.

This isn't probably a great time to have a book out where a police officer is only full of anger and the drive to take revenge on someone no matter the cost. Especially the fact that she says she only joined the force to extract punishment and revenge. Nina is a mess. She's unlikable, unethical, and seems to be missing a few vital brain cells. Her boyfriend is an unbelievable character. I didn't care for the connection to a shelter for abused women. I didn't like the exception, the pass Nina is given for working in a gray ethical arena just because her personal vendetta is just and ended up feeling like I was being pandered to as a woman. Oh please.

You Can Go Home Now is a hot mess. Everything seemed way-too-coincidental and the narrative jumped around too much. It was a struggle to finish reading and I kept telling myself to make it a DNF and go on to better things. Two stars because I managed to finish it.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of HarperCollins.
http://www.shetreadssoftly.com/2020/06/you-can-go-home-now.html
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3403546670 ( )