REVIEW: Last Night

Last Night
Author: Karen Ellis

Valedictorian of his high school class, Titus "Crisp" Crespo has a bright future. He's heading to Princeton in the fall and looks forward to college life. A series of bad decisions on one fateful day lead Crisp down a path he never expected to follow, where he will face a father he's never known and decisions he wanted to avoid ever facing. When Crisp's mother reports him missing, Detective Lex Cole has to unravel the events of Crisp's day to locate the youth, and his companion, Glynnie, after their disappearance.

This is a story that hits many of the big social concerns: racism. inequality, targeting of minorities by police, injustice, addiction, abuse, murder, etc. One bad decision leads into more like the domino effect for Crisp. One bad day might completely derail his life.

Last Night is the second book in The Searchers series. In the first book, Detective Lex Cole was mostly in a support position for FBI Agent Elsa Myers. This time, Lex is in the forefront with his partner, Saki Finley. Lex has a lot going on in his personal life, as he worries over his boyfriend possibly seeing someone else. He pushes those feelings to the side and hits this case hard, searching for two teenagers who are making some very poor, and possibly life-threatening, decisions. Elsa shows up a couple times in passing during the story, but she really doesn't figure into the plot in this second book. In fact, this second book really could be read as a standalone story. It isn't necessary to have read A Map of the Dark first to enjoy this story. While I was happy to see Lex become a more developed character and to see what a great detective he is, this story didn't grab  my attention quite as quickly as the first book in the series. This story develops a little more slowly, and focuses more on social justice than detective work. It caught me a bit by surprise. I was expecting more of the same vibe from the first book. The difference in pace and style surprised me a bit....but once I got into the plot and realized this was going to be totally different than A Map of the Dark, I got sucked into the story. 

I'm very interested to see where this series goes from here. I will definitely read more! Very curious to see who the main character will be in the next book. Will the series jump around, switching up each time? Or will it settle into focusing on Lex....Elsa....someone else? Each story so far has been well-written with complex and flawed characters. It makes for an interesting read....a different experience than other crime novels with more formula main characters.

Karen Ellis is a pen name for Author Katia Lief. The Searchers is my first experience with her writing. I've added her Karin Schaffer series to my TBR list.

**I voluntarily read a review copy of this book from Mulholland Books via NetGalley. All opinions expressed are entirely my own.**