All That Remains by RJ Scott

Narrated by Sean Crisden

All That Remains is the third and final book in RJ Scott’s series of romantic suspense novels set in the small Pennsylvania town of Lancaster Falls, and it neatly wraps up the overarching mystery storyline begun in What Lies Beneath and continued through Without a Trace. Even though I was disappointed with both the story and narration in the latter book, I decided to listen to All That Remains in hopes that Without a Trace had been suffering from middle-book-itis, and that the series finale would be a stronger listen. Plus, I wanted to find out whodunit!

The series has an overarching plot, so if you still like the sound of it after reading my reviews (!) then this isn’t the place to start. There are spoilers for the previous books in this review.

The discovery of several sets of human remains in a sink hole in Lancaster Falls leads to speculation that one of the bodies is that of Casey McGuire, a young man who went missing a decade earlier, and whose disappearance is still felt keenly by all in the community. The previous book (Without a Trace) focused on the investigation as to whether or not Casey was one of the murder victims and who might have killed him; All That Remains picks up the story shortly after the events of that book, when an FBI team headed by Special Agent Lucas Beaumont arrives in the town to work the investigation into what looks like a string of serial murders of young women.

Lucas has a personal reason for wanting to work the case as well. His grandfather – a former agent himself – believes that the woman he loved (and with whom he had an affair years earlier) may have been one of the victims, and Lucas, who is devoted to his Grandpa Toby, wants to try to obtain some measure of peace for the old man, whose health is failing due to Alzheimer’s.

The other main character is Josh Baker, who owns the local hotel and who has been best friends since childhood with chief of police Sawyer Wiseman and Drew McGuire, Casey’s brother. Josh is a single parent, raising his teenaged son Harry on his own, and doing a good job of it. But the business is struggling and has been for a little while; Josh would like to sell up and do something else, but because the hotel is a money pit, he continues to accept well-paying cyber-security jobs (he’s a White Hat hacker) so he can keep a roof over his and Harry’s heads until he can sell the place.

The day he arrives in town, Lucas has to hit the ground running as the body of another murder victim – Adam Gray, a veteran and survivalist who lived just outside town – is found and he, Sawyer, Drew and Logan (Sawyer’s second-in-command) go out to Gray’s home to investigate. Not long after this, more bodies start piling up as one by one, leading figures in the community are violently killed. While Lucas and his FBI team work to try to identify the victims of the earlier crimes, Sawyer and his team investigate the current spate of murders – and together they try to work out if there is any the two sets of crimes could be connected.

Well, I did find out whodunnit – although I’d worked it out long before the end, mostly because all the other suspects were killed off during the course of the book! But the book is full of inconsistencies and I didn’t find the compelling story I’d hoped for. The mystery is severely underdeveloped and lacking in any urgency or tension. There are no clues laid out for the characters or listeners to follow which would actually enable us to draw any conclusion as to the identity of the villain, who eventually reveals their identity towards the end and then does that whole baddie monologuing thing while we wait for the cavalry to arrive and save the day. (My personal theory is that they probably got so fed up watching all these supposedly intelligent cops and FBI agents running in circles and getting nowhere that they couldn’t stand the stupid any more!)

And then there’s the (non) romance. Romantic suspense should achieve a good balance between those two elements, and sadly, that doesn’t happen here. We get 95% suspense and 5% romance – and I use that term very loosely. There’s an instant attraction between Josh and Lucas which leads to some kissing and eventually a quick sex scene, but there’s no chemistry between them, and although the relationship develops over a few weeks, pretty much everything about it is told and not shown. They spend time together, they talk, they have a lot of sex (we only get one or two scenes), they sleep in each other’s arms and are basically all lovey-dovey, but we are never SHOWN any of it. It’s just mentioned in passing. The ILYs are thrown in at the end (following a clichéd near-death experience) and when, in the epilogue, Sawyer basically gives Lucas a job… well, I didn’t buy that either.

Sean Crisden is a very talented narrator, and his name on the cover of an audiobook is always going to get my attention, but although I enjoyed his narration in this book more than in the previous one, it still isn’t his best work. His pacing is fine, his character differentiation is excellent throughout, and I was really impressed by his range of characterisations; every single character sounds distinct, no matter how small a role they have. He does a great job capturing the personalities of the two leads, too, Josh’s natural good humour and exuberance, and Lucas’ more reserved, considered manner evident in their speech, and he carries those traits over into their narration PoV rather than just reverting to a single “narrator voice”. His portrayal of Harry is also spot on. But his skill in those areas can’t quite disguise an overall lack of energy or engagement with the characters and story, which I realise may have more than a little to do with the lacklustre material.

The first book in the series – What Lies Beneath – is undoubtedly the best one, but the overarching plot means having to wade through two not so great books in order to reach a resolution. There are a lot of really excellent m/m romantic suspense series around right now, but sadly, the Lancaster Falls trilogy isn’t one of them.

Caz

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