Long Bright River by Liz Moore – book review

5th January 2020 Books

AD | review

A thriller that is filled with drama and emotion. Long Bright River is great for people who like their thrillers to have a little more depth to their characters. Read on for a full book review.

THE BLURB

KENSINGTON AVE, PHILADELPHIA

THE FIRST PLACE YOU GO FOR DRUGS OR SEX.
THE LAST PLACE YOU WANT TO LOOK FOR YOUR SISTER.

Mickey Fitzpatrick has been patrolling the 24th District for years. She knows most of the working women by name. She knows what desperation looks like and what people will do when they need a fix. She’s become used to finding overdose victims: their numbers are growing every year. But every time she sees someone sprawled out, slumped over, cold to the touch, she has to pray it’s not her sister, Kacey.

When the bodies of murdered sex workers start turning up on the Ave, the Chief of Police is keen to bury the news. They’re not the kind of victims that generate a whole lot of press anyway. But Mickey is obsessed, dangerously so, with finding the perpetrator – before Kacey becomes the next victim.

LONG BRIGHT RIVER – MY THOUGHTS

I really wanted to love this book as I loved the sound of the blurb. Sadly though, something about it just didn’t feel right to me.

Mickey Fitzpatrick is looking for her sister. A drug addicted prostitute, there is no denying that her sister lives a dangerous life on ‘the Ave’. However, when working girls start showing up dead and her sister goes missing, Mickey is worried enough to go looking. Soon, it seems like there is more than just her job on the line as Mickey starts to uncover not only the truth about when is happening to these girls, but also painful truths from her own family and history.

Long Bright River is a thriller with a twist as woven throughout the story is the painful impact of a traumatic childhood for two sisters. Sisters whose lives take very different routes. Moore does a fantastic job in describing the devastation that drugs can have on families. And how the impact of our childhoods can define the people we become.

This is where Long Bright River fell down a little for me though. On one hand it’s a great whodunnit as the concept is sound and it does keep you wondering. Then on the other it works as an exploration of sibling relationships and childhood trauma. It’s moving and I desperately wanted to know more about Kacey’s side of the story. For me though the two sides just did not blend. It would have worked as a thriller, or modern fiction but by blending the two genres together in a single book, it just missed the mark for me. By trying to do two things, it ended up not really doing either to the best of what it could have been.

This is such a shame as both sides of this story have so much potential and I think would have worked better if it were given the space to do it. More intrigue and drama for thriller and more emotion and connection for modern fiction. I did enjoy Long Bright River though and would recommend it for people who like thrillers to have a little more to them than just murder.

Long Bright River will be released on 9th January and is available to pre-order on Amazon (affiliate link).

If you enjoyed this review, they why not check out our other reviews over on the blog.

DISCLOSURE: I was sent this book as an eARC via NetGalley in return for this review. However, as always, all thoughts and opinions are my own.