Why I read it: 2024 Reading Challenge

Let me just start this off by saying I love mystery / thriller / suspense novels, so this rating may be swinging artificially high based on that bias alone. 

This novel is one of a series of novels by the author that center around FBI agents and their cases. The good news is that you don’t have to have read any of the other books in the series. The bad news is that because this was book #24 in that series, I found the writing to be pretty sloppy. In Vortex (which I never did figure out why the book was named that), there are a few cases swirling about (see what I did there?): a missing young woman from a fraternity party, a missing soldier in possession of a highly-confidential flash drive, and a murder in the suburbs short on evidence.

Overall, I felt this book could have been better. I wanted to like it more, but two things bothered me nearly immediately and kept chafing me throughout:

1. One of the main characters is named Sherlock. I can appreciate a nod to one of the greats, but you’re telling me that you couldn’t come up with ANY OTHER NAME for this character WHO IS ONE OF THE LEAD DETECTIVES IN THIS MYSTERY? Not even an alternate spelling? Sherloch perhaps? I would just like a smidge more creativity is all. Every time the name popped up, I found myself rolling my eyes, which doesn’t lend itself well for bonding with the characters.
2. Every time someone’s phone rang (mind you, all of these characters are meant to be in their 30s and older), it was described EXACTLY what ringtone was playing (title and artist), and EACH CALLER HAD A DIFFERENT RING TONE. I’m sorry, show me a millennial who has had their phone on loud since 2002 AND who goes through the trouble of picking specific ringtones (all modern songs!) for each of their work colleagues, and I’ll show you that I can do a backbend (both are impossible tasks).

On a more serious note, once I learned to turn a blind eye to these two atrocities, I did like the story. I had a difficult time keeping the story lines straight, as the pages quickly changed POVs, and the story details often overlapped. There were also a lot of characters, and sometimes I found it difficult to keep track of who was who, and how everyone was related to the story. Perhaps a side effect of reading too quickly, maybe? 

All in all, a pretty straightforward who-dun-it with high-powered people abusing that high power, and a cold case with emotional ties that brings everyone together to bring down the bad guy. 

Read this as part of my 2024 reading challenge so since it met that need and didn’t drive me too insane, it earned three stars. 

If you read this one and have any additional thoughts, let me know in the comments!

TL;DR: Would I recommend it to a friend? No. Unless you’re a fan of this author and are dead set on a quick read, there wasn’t enough substance here for me, and it was just confusing enough to be annoying.