THE ONE WHO WALKED AWAY by Karen Rose

5* Didn't see this coming - hints and red herrings that good and that seamlessly embedded, that I had a mouth-drop moment when the penny dropped. 

I thought this would be a typical 'wronged woman finds herself and finds the love of a good man' type of tale. Well, it was, but the love part came late and thankfully didn't have either the male lead thinking with his little head, or the female lead thinking with her hormones. Yes, there was an attraction but once burnt, twice shy - for both of them, believably, and their ages (mid-to-late 30s) - meant that they took things slow, without TSTL moments like having sex whilst the killer was on a spree. 

The bounty hunting - fugitive retrieval - aspect was well done, believable and interesting. It made for a solid tale that brought the female lead into the male lead's vicinity, allowing them to cooperate, especially once the killer upped his speed. The identity of the killer was kept really well, but threw another red herring into the tale once a discovery was made. 

I didn't see the killer coming but they - not spoilering here - were well done. It was sad what they went through, but despite that, their brain felt more than just scrambled from that incident. There was a malevolence and an utter lack of conscience that made them chilling. Their plotting, their planning, their patience, and the collusion of someone who should've known and done better, all made for an excellent race against time. 

Elle had some great friends who were there for her during the tale, despite a clash of what was, in her eyes, black and white, and in Sara's, shades of grey with permissible holding back. I'm glad their friendship survived, and I'm glad that when a life event forced Sara back home, kick-butt lawyer Alexis came to the rescue, literally and figuratively. 

The side characters were decent. The many who were killed seemed mostly decent, too. There was some real community spirit in the cop's town, that eventually embraced Elle after initially rejecting her, which was understandable - she was at one point the harbinger of death.

ARC courtesy of NetGalley and Headline for my reading pleasure. 

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