Criminologist Dr. Gretchen White thought Detective Lauren Marconi could never cross certain lines. Then Lauren, with fresh blood on her hands, is arrested for an execution-style slaying. Even as the evidence mounts, Gretchen is convinced she’s innocent. Because Lauren would have known how to get away with murder.

Forced to team up with Lachlan Gibbs, the combative by-the-book star of Internal Affairs and Lauren’s boyfriend, Gretchen starts digging for the truth. But when she begins to uncover Lauren’s closely guarded secrets, the investigation raises more questions than answers. As Lauren’s decade-long obsession with the victim comes to light, Gretchen can’t help but doubt her own instincts.

She knows better than most that not everything is as it seems. And with Lauren’s future on the line, it’s more important than ever to see this mystery through to the end.

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Brianne Labruskes tells wonderfully twisted, complex stories that keep my opinions and suspicions shifting and change my understanding of and sympathy for the main characters.

She did this so well in ‘A Familiar Sight’, the first book in this series that I spent an entire weekend mesmerised by it. It was fresh and original, brilliantly told in lean focused prose, full of surprises and it had a main character, Dr Gretchen White, who was unashamedly different – a ‘voluntarily non-violent’ sociopath. And she was the one investigating the murders, not committing them. The relationship that built up between her and her Police Detective ‘babysitter’ Lauren Marconi was one of the strengths of the book. Marconi’s ability to see beyond White’s reputation and her outward aggression and to build a basis for trust gave emotional depth to the bookt.

The next book, ‘What Can’t Be Seen’ was equally well-written and plotted but changed things up by putting White under so much pressure that she was likely to crack, by straining Marconi’s trust in White and by revealing a backstory that made me question everything I thought I’d learned about Gretchen White in the first book.

It was good but exhausting and it left me wondering what new twist a third book could offer that wouldn’t just rake over old ground.

Brianne Labruskes had that all figured out. ‘See It End‘ starts with Marconi turning herself in for murder and telling White not to investigate. Yeah, like that was ever going to happen.

Marconi in the frame for murder acted as a springboard for jumping in to a fast-paced page-turner mystery unveiled from three points of view: White is at the centre of the NOW timeline, trying to save Marconi even though or perhaps because Marconi asked her not to; A younger Marconi, a police officer still in uniform in Vermont is at the centre of the THEN timeline and Martha, the wife of one of the key suspects, is the focus of the BEFORE timeline.

It’s a sign of Brianna Labuskes’ skill that I was never confused by what was going on but my head was spinning at all the possibilities. Was Marconi guilty and if so why did she do it? How would the three timelines come together. What was Martha’s agenda? Would White finally go too far and do things that she shouldn’t to exonerate Marconi regardless of the facts. I had as much fun thinking about where the book might go as I did finding out where it actually went.

I admired that, while delivering a plot with more twists than straight lines, Brianna Labuskes preserved that consistency and integrity of the characters. What I learned changed my understanding of them but it felt like getting to know someone better rather feeling that I’d never known them at all.

This was a very entertaining thriller trilogy that ‘See It End’ did justice to.

I’m a confirmed Brianna Labuskes fan now. I’ve already ordered, ‘The Lies You Wrote’, the first book in a series about FBI forensic linguist, Raisa Susanto, which is scheduled for publication on 28th November 2023.

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