There’s an interesting statement in the early part, where the killer assumes police look outside the family for a killer. Nowadays, at least in Britain, friends and family are the prime suspects. Then again, it is a character view and no one said criminals were smart.

There is some lovely foreshadowing, from the villain’s choice of people to emulate to the deliberate choice of alias names. It is ramping up the tension nicely, and beginning to develop its characters well. And then it just stops.

The problem? To me this felt like chapter one of a longer story. There were hundreds of plot threads open, the chance to get inside a killer’s mind, the suggestions of backgrounds (we learn virtually none of the main detective’s), and little beyond a shallow look at the motivations of each of the main characters. None of it is resolved, and the story ends halfway through the investigation, at the point where the investigation would ramp up and potentially the FBI become invovled (3 murders in 3 states). It seems this is by design, as when I checked the title again I saw the “Episode 1” at the end. It’s a mis-labelling: most television episodes have a self-contained story as well as main plot set-ups.

However if you are looking for a sampler, the writing is good, the characters have potential even if the story is too short to realise it yet, and there’s a lot of promise. Just expect to pay for the rest of the series, with the risk it is canceled halfway through (rather like TV!)