Without a Trace by RJ Scott

Narrated by Sean Crisden

Each book in RJ Scott’s Lancaster Falls trilogy features a different central couple, but the suspense plot – which kicks off when a skull and other human remains are found half-buried in a dried-up lakebed – is ongoing. I listened to book one, What Lies Beneath, towards the end of last year and enjoyed it, and I eagerly snapped up Without a Trace so I could continue with the story. I looked back at my review of book one to remind myself of events, and noted I’d mentioned excellent chemistry between the two leads, a really good and sometimes claustrophobic small-town vibe and had given good grades for both story and narration, so I had high hopes for book two.

What Lies Beneath centred on the story of Casey McGuire, whose sudden disappearance several years earlier devastated his family and the local community. The discovery of the skull, followed by the discovery of more human remains fuels speculation that the missing teen has finally been found, and Without a Trace opens pretty much where the previous book left off, with Casey’s younger brother Drew – who joined the military not long after his brother vanished and hasn’t been back since – bursting into the office of newly-minted police chief Sawyer Wiseman and demanding answers. News of the discovery of the bones has spread and he’s taken leave from his unit (it’s never actually specified what branch of the military he works for) to come home to Lancaster Falls to find out the truth once and for all. He has no faith in the police department whatsoever, remembering the days of former Captain Sandoval – who never made waves or went out of his way to investigate Casey’s disappearance when it happened – and he’s clearly distraught and seething with anger. Even though the new chief of police, Sawyer Wiseman, is one of his oldest friends, Drew won’t listen to him or his assurances that he’s as keen to get to the bottom of things as Drew is; he’s determined to go it alone and prepared to tear the town apart to get answers if he has to.

Naturally, that attitude doesn’t endear him to Sawyer or to his second-in-command, Logan Henessey, a former military man himself, who, after a medical discharge, decided he wanted to continue to serve and protect and has been with Lancaster Falls PD for a couple of years. He immediately recognises in Drew a man who has seen and done too much and who is haunted by it, but he can’t afford to let that sympathy affect his judgement – especially not when, as quickly becomes clear, Drew is intent on kicking over every anthill and upsetting every apple cart in town and doesn’t much care who he upsets in his quest to get to the truth about what happened to Casey.

Without a Trace suffers from what I often call “middle book-itis”. It’s a bridge between the opening set-up and the finale, and seems to be treading water a lot of the time. And that might be okay, if there was something else going on to pick up the slack – like the development of a romantic relationship between the two leads – but there isn’t. Drew and Logan spend very little time together until around the three-quarter mark, and when they do interact, Drew is metaphorically spitting and snarling at Logan for no other reason than that Logan is trying to do his job and stop Drew acting like a bull in a china shop and putting people’s backs up. It’s not even an antagonists-to-lovers situation, because there’s no spark or chemistry between them whatsoever; we’re told they’re attracted to each other, but there’s no discernible connection between them, and the ILYs at the end come completely out of nowhere. It’s insta-love of the worst kind and the sex scenes are of the “blink and you’ll miss it” variety. Quite honestly, I’d rather they’d not been included at all as they add nothing to the development of the story or relationship and felt forced.

There also seemed to be a lot more internal monologuing and a lot less dialogue in this story than the last one, and I found Drew’s frequent outbursts and melodramatic internal dialogue impossible to reconcile with the fact of his being a member of some kind of hush-hush military unit. I understand he’s devastated at finally receiving confirmation that his brother is dead and not off living a happy life elsewhere as he’d tried to believe, but at times, he comes across more like the worst kind of curl-tossing, foot-stamping TSTL heroine than a grown man who is also a badass black-ops soldier.

With all that said, I did actually enjoy the suspense plot despite its being pretty slow going. Under Logan’s influence, Drew does eventually learn to think before he acts and becomes a better investigator in the process, and as in the previous book, one of the ongoing plotlines in resolved – here, we discover who is responsible for the cryptic graffiti messages that are being left around town – and we get a few more clues as to what might have happened to Casey.

Sean Crisden is a narrator I enjoy listening to and I’ve given high grades to a number of his performances, but I’m sad to say I can’t do that this time. I don’t know if my disappointment with the story led to a disappointment with the narration, but it seemed to me that he was as disengaged from it as I was and, dare I say it, was just “phoning it in.” All the things he does well – pacing, vocal characterisation and differentiation – were perfectly fine; he does a good job with his portrayal of Drew’s mother and the other female cast members, and his voice acting in the dialogue was as good as ever. But the narrative portions of the story were really flat – and as there was a LOT of narrative and internal dialogue this was especially noticeable. It really felt as though he was reading through a list and he wanted to get to the end. I hate writing reviews like this, especially of a performer who is usually terrific, so I’m going to tell myself he must have been having an off-day or three when he recorded this one.

Without a Trace proved to be a disappointment, but I’m invested enough in the overall story arc to want to finish out the series to find out how everything is resolved. Book three, All That Remains, was released in September; fingers crossed I’ll be able to report more positively on that one.

Caz

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