Netgalley

Laurel Snow wouldn’t call hunting a serial killer a vacation, but with a pile of dead bodies unearthed near her Genesis Valley, WA, hometown, she’ll take what she can get. Yet something about this case stirs her in unexpected ways. Like the startling connection she feels to Dr. Abigail Caine, a fiercely intelligent witness with a disturbing knack for making Laurel feel like she has something on her. Then there’s Laurel’s attraction to Huck Rivers, the fish and wildlife officer guiding her to the crime scene—and into the wilderness . . .

A former soldier and a trained sniper, Huck’s thirst for blood is rivaled only by his fierce pursuit of Laurel. He’s been burned by love, wounded by the government, and betrayed before, and to say he has trust issues is the ultimate understatement. Plus, he might be closer to this killer than anybody knows…

Once in the heart of darkness with Huck, Laurel must negotiate her distracting desire for him, her complex rapport with Abigail—and her mission to find a serial killer among a growing list of suspects and a danger that’s far too close to home. So close in fact, Laurel fears she will never find her way back to the woman she once was . . .

‘You Can Run’ isn’t quite the usual Rebecca Zanetti offering of late, but it is definitely one that seems to take her writing in a more ‘serious’, crime/mystery-driven suspense type of story that inches out of the RS category. But it was generally a story that I liked though—I put it down for long periods of time but had no trouble taking it up again—and like many of the RS/mystery-type books, focuses on drawing a web around its main protagonists and delves deep into just how tangled they can get when a series of murders brings to light a small town’s mysteries and secrets.

FBI profiler and child-prodigy Laurel Snow is one who stands out not just because of her unusual appearance, but also because of her somewhat odd-is personality, as though she is sometimes confused by the ‘usual’ social cues that most people pick up on.

The pairing of Laurel Snow with Huck Rivers is also an intriguing one, but also one that is very much in its rocky and clunky infancy (their attraction that didn’t seem to be written linearly in its progress somehow), as Zanetti chooses to focus on the rottenness of a church community in Genesis Valley and the sinister links between the pastoral staff, Laurel herself and her newfound family instead. Laurel’s and Huck’s interactions are at this point and by the end of the story, mostly based on the murder mystery, their own internalisations about their vague attraction to each other and then falling into bed with nary a build-up…and not much more progress other than that.

With the many strings dangling enticingly as the story comes to an abrupt close, ‘You Can Run’ is very much the establishing novel in what looks to be a series of books (hopefully). It wasn’t by any means a perfect read—some red-herrings just felt more annoying, serving as turntables rather than actual moments that led to reader-questioning and some scenes did look like filler—but it was one that was engrossing enough that I wanted to know how Zanetti would resolve Laurel/Huck’s fledgling relationship and the new road Laurel takes in the second book.