Oh this was lovely- a terrific mystery to get lost in & it kept me curious about things right to the very end. I loved spending more time with Cassie Maddox.... And hold out hope for more of her & some others in the remaining books!

Love the detective Cassie Maddox -- I'd follow her anywhere....I actually found this mystery more compelling than In the Woods, but I think this author still does her detective characters better than her plots.

This book was recommended to me because I really liked The Secret History (my fav book of 2022 and of all time) and while this book didn’t necessarily live up to the hype it was still very good. The basic premise was that this police officer Cassie and her boss agreed to make this undercover persona (lexie) and during the case Cassie ended up getting really hurt and quit the murder section of the police station. Now five years later they find a girl dead and her boyfriend who works in murder, Sam, calls her to come look at the body. She found this odd considering she doesnt work in murder anymore, but she goes and sees that the girl that died looks exactly like her, like her almost identical doppelganger, and te funny part is that this girl was under the identity of lexie, the fake identity that the police station made for an undercover case that cassie had previously used. After some major convincing to find out what happened in te case Cassie agrees to go undercover to live in the house with lexies previous housemates and find out what happened and who stabbed her (wasn't a fatal stab wound, but it punctured her lung so after she passed out she died). Now to not make this review to long im going to briefly describe all of the housemates and they do really give the who secret history vibe. Lexie joined the group later (like richard) but overall the group was very secluded from the rest of the town and their fellow college students.

Daniel: her inherited the house and made it so that all of the housemates were on the deed, he is arguable the least social, and very very serious, a Henry, if you've read the secret history you might say.

Abby: the only girl in the group other than lexie, she isn’t really like Camilla (secret history comparison) she doesn't really have any outstanding character traits, shes very normal girl. I think there was something going on between her and daniel but the lines are very smudged so we don't know. She also has a rough relationship with her mom (no pasts, they made a pact to never talk about their pasts)

Rafe: he is the boy in the group with a fiery, his father is very condescending/critical of him. He definitely had some type of relationship with lexie and also justin (maybe) because he was the father of lexie’s baby (she was pregnant)

Justin: Nice boy in the group, shy, kind of soft spoken, hes gay and (he resembles francis slightly) his family shunned him because of that.

Now to give Lexie a bit of backstory, all we know is that shes been running away for awhile, she was engaged and thats how she left and adopted the lexie persona. Once she got pregnant she wanted to run again and tried to sell her share in the house, the rest of the group found out and justin nicked her with the knife and she ran out of the house and thats how she died.

Cassie during this case was starting to get attached to the group and she actually revealed to daniel that she was an undercover, but in the end daniel ends up saying he stabbed lexie (to cover for justin) and then he tries to shoot lexie so she in turn shot him.

In the end, Cassie and Sam end up together and the group that lived in the house all separated. I really enjoyed this book, wasn’t up to The Secret History level but very good and entertaining, i would have never expected Justin.