The second book in the Park Trilogy, Crimson Park continues the story of the Ongoing Investigation Division - an effort to devote manpower to cold cases and reallocate resources to work the cases to their natural conclusion. The department is made up of Detectives Stan Wyld and Jake Steiner, I.T. specialist, Mallory Dimante and newly acquired pet/police dog, Jake. The second case for the OID begins with a missing person - a film director by the name of James Marston. But the more they look into things, the more strange things they uncover.

I loved the first book, the second though, was not quite as good. First off, it's a cliffhanger. I wouldn't say I love cliffhangers but I can deal with them if they're wrapped up to a sufficient point. This was not one of those and it left me confused and annoyed. I'm lucky the third book is available but I prefer my cliffhangers to be labelled so if it's not released - I can wait to read books together.

Second, this book could do with a good editor - or just a decent reader. While the first book was well plotted this was all over the shop - the narrative and continuity are a mess. Apart from the failure to remember where people were and what they were doing and a lack of decent editing to fix it, the author seems to have forgotten who is who as well. Mallory Dimante's father is now Handleman - the innocent man in the first book who was considered guilty by everyone. In the first book her father was the guy who ran Handleman over with the car. I honestly had to get the first book out to double check what the hell was going on - I thought I must be remembering wrong - but I was not. I was annoyed but I was still enjoying the book - the problem was the more that fell apart, the less I liked.

Part 1 was fantastic. The buildup of the case and the unexplained mysteries were great. Part 2 with the return of Michael and Jessie was even better. And then Part 3 it all started going downhill. Parts of the plot fell away - Mallory's stalker like yeah it was Pitic? But why? and the dead nurse both just went nowhere. Parts got messy - instead of collaborating (which was what I liked most in the first book), they all ran around in different directions like headless chooks. Instead of debriefing or even sharing basic information, they keep it all to themselves. And parts got gross. The office glass windows. Semen on the glass? Really? Was that really necessary? I mean sure, let them have sex. Let them have sex against the glass even. With smudges because sure. But semen left on the glass was just fkn gross and so utterly unnecessary.

Mallory was rather hard to like at times. Between her gung ho attitude and her delusions she's just irritating. She's so unwilling to listen before doing everything her own way and I didn't understand her crush on Jake at all. I mean she seems to think they're great friends and I'm not sure why. The last book left it with him being super angry at her about her deception and there was nothing to indicate that had changed - but she seemed to think they were meant to be.

She thought Jake understood. Cop to cop. She thought he saw her good parts and ignored the rest because he knew how the scar happened. She thought he could see past the scar. Thought he could see only her. She didn’t realize how much she counted on that. Still, he’d chosen normal. And really, why go with damaged goods when you can get new?

Booth, C. J.. Crimson Park: A spellbinding mystery with an unmissable twist (The Park Trilogy Book 2) (p. 287). Kindle Edition.

Like um what now? The romance was ridiculous and frankly, pretty unbelievable and so, so cringeworthy. Jake was okay. Can't say I really liked him as much as I did in the first book. But I liked Jake dog. He was funny and I loved Stan and I was shattered by the shooting of them both! Poor Jake dog and Stan. And of course I'm a huge Michael fan. I loved that he looks after Jessie and it was awesome when he kicked Pitic in the face. Little creep deserves it. He's a total badass. And his lying was particularly amusing.

Not quite as good as the first book and definitely should be read in conjunction with the third book Angel Park, but a relatively decent read if you ignore a few big missteps. 3.5 stars, rounded to 4. ( )