Abandoned by Booklikes

I just realized that I have been reading Tami Hoag's Kovac/Liska series since I was around 14 or so. I found Dust to Dust in my mom's bedroom one day and promptly snuck it away once I read the back of the book jacket. I didn't realize it was second in the series (and I hate reading stories out of order, more on that in my next review) and so when I finished it I remember being bent out of sorts because there were references to something else that happened and I realized then this had to be the second or third book. After some snooping in my parents bedroom I found Ashes to Ashes. Then I promptly read that and Dust to Dust afterwards. Even though the series follows partners Sam Kovac and Nikki Liska I thought the series always seemed to focus on Sam more. I didn't mind this, because though I love Liksa's character, she always drove me a bit crazy when it came to her interactions with her ex and her sons. There was too much of that for me going on in this one. The strongest parts were the sections that focused on Sam and his new partner. I was disappointed in the rush ending and the lack of them towards the end when it became the Nikki show. So still a five star read, just not a five star favorite read for me.

This is the fifth Kovac/Liska novel written by Tami Hoag. If you have not read the prior books please note that there will be spoilers regarding the earlier books in this series. I finished Cold Cold Heart last year and remember being disappointed by the lack of Sam and Nikki in that one. They had a couple of token appearances and all it did was make me wish for another book starring them. I was happily granted my wish this year.

For long time readers, we know that Kovac and Liska have been partners for what it seems like forever. Sam is eternally alone with some romantic entanglements here and there (can we get him a stable girlfriend?) with Liska constantly sparring with her ex Speed. Though they are not that great in their personal relationships, they are both excellent detectives. What is funny is that I really didn't care for either character that much in Ashes to Ashes. Kovac was really set up as a thorn in the side of John Quinn who was really the star of that book for me, as was Kate Quinn. We got a glimpse of the two detectives at work, but I am not going to lie, they were really both jerky off and on. That all changed in Dust to Dust which really was 100 percent focused on Kovac and Liska. You get to get inside their brains and see what made them both work and why they were both insanely good at their jobs. Followed up by Prior Bad Acts (I loved this one) and the 9th Girl (oh man so so good) I was really happy with where the series was going. Though we as readers could keep seeing Liska's growing discontent with the hours of working homicide since she wanted to be there for her two pre-teen and now teenage sons. The Bitter Season picks up really after the events of Cold Cold Heart with Liska now working cold cases and Kovac working with his now third new partner. I don't know how much time has elapsed between books, but it seems like it has been a while.

Though Liska is a solid and great cop, she is stuck having to re-open a cold case she doesn't think is remotely solvable and having a misogynistic retired detective in her face while she tries to figure out who murdered a star sex crimes detective 25 years earlier than the start of the book.

Kovac is training to train his newest partner and finding him lacking in every way to Liska. He misses her though he understands why she transferred. A double murder of a rich white couple has Kovac and Taylor (the new partner) investigating whether this double murder was a home invasion gone wrong or something worse.

So for me Kovac is my favorite out of this paring. The ongoing feud with his neighbor about his Christmas decorations, his sadness at his lack of a love life and his un-ending crush on Kate Quinn make me love him. Add in his smart mouth and his brains and you got yourself a great detective. We don't get a lot of Kovac in this one though except when he is working the case and dealing with his new partner. I hope that Taylor sticks around in the next one, he and Kovac together after a while do start to mesh together and I loved the older mentor teaching the young guy the ropes trope that was going on in this one.

Liska felt like same stuff, different day. She is still not happy with her ex and even though she knows it upsets her one son she and he still fight with each other. Frankly not a lot of it made a lot of sense to me. Liska already knows the guy is a disappointment, I don't get why she still thinks fighting is the way to go. Finding out that she realizes that working cold cases are not giving her the same sense of satisfaction as homicide was interesting though. As a reader I wonder what is Liska going to choose. She starts to realize that both of her kids are going to be out of the house soon, so does it make sense to give up what she wants in order to make their last few years at home as "normal" as she can? I did like the question of what does it mean to have it all as a single working mother. However, I felt like too much was going on for Hoag to really focus on this issue that much.

We get old familiars in the homicide unit (not enough of them though) and some new characters as well. I have to say that Kovac's partner Taylor was great. I hope we get to see him involved in future stories.

The writing was great and I thought that up until the end the flow was perfect. We tended to go back and forth to Liska and Kovac though I think this book focused more on Liska. I wish it had been a bit more even for me. And honestly, the Liska stuff felt very boring after a while. We had her dealing with a lot of road blocks and just reading about them made me tired. Kovac's case was much more interesting and had the battiest characters ever.

The setting of Minneapolis in the winter is always bleak and Hoag plays that up to perfect effect in this one.

Like I already said, the ending was a lot rushed. We had a lot of loose ends to tie up and I wish that we had spent more time on that. It didn't feel like a real ending when we got to it, it felt like the chapter that happens before you get to the epilogue. There are a lot of unanswered questions about where do Kovac and Liska go from here. Looking forward to the next one.