Like many novels these days that are over-hyped, the front/back cover of my paperback was riddled with talk of the twist ending and gasping for breath finale.  Obviously, that puts the reader on guard to try to outsmart the plot and guess the twist before it actually occurs.  In this case, it was so blatantly obvious that it took away from the enjoyment of the novel.

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New author, Raffi Yessayan, obviously knows his legal/criminal stuff and his insight into the workings of the Boston legal system are quite interesting. The search for the Bathtub Serial Killer is nerve-wracking until the obvious guilty party is discovered.  Knowing that the novel warned of a twist, you recognize that the killer must be one of the 'good guys'.  Unfortunately, the reader is never given any reason, justification or previous history once the killer is revealed and there is not even any explanation as to the 'name' the killer is tabbed with throughout the novel (a badly placed red herring).

The comparsions to Dennis Lehane are way too premature and highly undeserved.  I hope Yessayan can concoct future novels where his technical knowledge equals his ability to drive character development and plot a little more believably.