Killing Rachel (Murder Notebooks #2)

Anything entitled The Murder Notebooks should be fascinating right? Not so, I should have looked more into the plot and reviews before I purchased the novel. The Murder Notebooks: Killing Rachel by Anne Cassidy takes play in London, following the investigation of teenager Rose looking for her missing parents. This is the second book in the series, but I never read the first one. To be honest, I didn’t know that Killing Rachel was the second, but it really didn’t matter. The novel gives enough backstory to get by.

The main thread that goes through this series is that five years ago, Rose’s parents disappeared. Rose believes them to be dead, but her brother Josh hasn’t given up. He believes that there is a conspiracy, and that because of their parent’s work in Cold Cases the Russian Mob took them. This novel has the two looking through old letters and cases from their parents, and investigating places and people mentioned. Josh takes them to an abandoned cabin, a place he vaguely remembers, hoping that their parents might be hiding out there. Unfortunately, a group of Russian gangsters kidnap and torture Josh, hoping that he will lead them to the information they want.

Old police friends are telling Rose and Josh different things, which means that some of their parent’s friends have to be working with the Russians and are lying about what has really happened.

That is only part of this novel though. Rachel was an old friend of Rose’s while at boarding school, and she has been found dead, drowned in the lake by school. Despite a falling out months earlier, Rose goes back to school to offer her condolences and talk to the police. While their, Rose begins looking into Rachel’s life and death. A death that wasn’t a suicide like everyone is saying, but murder. Was it an ex-boyfriend, the brother of a suicidal friend, hurt and disgruntled classmate; Rose has taken it upon herself to find out.

Book was rather boring, mainly because the main character has no friends. There is so little interaction and personality that it is hard to get behind her as a character or lose yourself in her story. I would recommend this book to people who enjoy novels like Killing Mr. Griffin, I Know What You Did Last Summer, and other conspiracy and murder young adult books.