I tried really hard to like this one because the synopsis and the overall premise seemed enticing, but as I got through the book, it really started to feel flat.

Hazel Cho is a private investigator living in New York with her roommate, Kenny Shum. She’s struggling to really make it in her career, wanting to prove to herself and her disapproving tiger parents that she made a good choice in choosing private investigation.

That’s when Madeline Hemsley comes along with the offer of a lifetime: find her goddaughter, Mia Ross, who has disappeared from the orphanage, Saint Agnes. In return, Madeline will give her a large sum of money that will help Hazel really get her life turned around.

Naturally, she takes it, but she has no idea just how dark and sinister the truth really is.

*Spoilers Ahead*

Hazel makes the drive to Saint Agnes and immediately, you kind of get the sense that whatever happened to Mia is really dark. You learn that Mia is a beautiful bi-racial child with a great singing voice who caught the attention of her music teacher, who was trying to help her with singing.

There are a few red herrings introduced early on, including this music teacher. There’s the headmaster of Saint Agnes, Thomas Mackenzie, who for some reason seems very hostile to Hazel’s attempts to find Mia, as well as the groundskeeper, Neil Paver, who gives Hazel a weird vibe whenever she’s around him for too long.

Sonia Barreto, thankfully, is like a light who helps Hazel as she tries to navigate the ins and outs of Saint Agnes. Sonia wants to help Hazel, and even gets her the initial clearance she needs to come to Saint Agnes and start investigating. It’s there where Hazel is approached by Mia’s roommate, Penny, who gives her a picture of Mia with a logo of a smiling man behind the photograph.

This is where Hazel starts to unravel the secrets behind the Dionysus Theater, a secret that nearly gets her killed throughout the course of the story.

As Hazel investigates more into the Dionysus Theater, there are people behind the scenes who are tracking her movements and trying to prevent her from exposing the true nature of the illicit organization. These people, come to find out, are police officers on the local force, who are corrupt and in on these activities.

Meanwhile, Hazel meets and starts falling for trust fund kid, Andrew DuPont, who shows up suddenly into her life and immediately is the guy of her dreams, much to Kenny’s chagrin. 

Hazel continues investigating Mia’s disappearance, and she’s on a time crunch since Madeline says she won’t give Hazel the money unless Mia is found within a certain time frame. So she’s really giving her all into finding out the true nature of the Dionysus Theater and what happened to Mia.

In the final act of the book, it’s revealed that the Dionysus Theater is a child sex trafficking ring with Andrew and Sonia being the heads of it. They were trying to frame Mia’s music teacher, who had ‘killed himself’ near the end, as the true culprit behind her disappearance. Sonia was even trying to shift Hazel’s attention onto Thomas MacKenzie, the headmaster of Saint Agnes.

Hazel kills Andrew when he tries to assault her and then Kenny, who has Hazel’s phone location, comes with the police to save Hazel and the girls from the trafficking situation. Sonia is arrested, along with the rest of the men involved. And Mia is saved, but it’s a bit upsetting to learn what she was going through in the meantime.

So here are my problems with the narrative (and there are quite a few). When it comes to the reveal that Sonia and Andrew are the masterminds behind this whole operation, it comes on quite suddenly and without warning. No joke, Andrew turns from a charming rich boy one moment to a cartoonishly evil sexual deviant the next. You get an inkling that something is up with him because of how suddenly he is interested in being with Hazel romantically, but to have him be the head of a trafficking ring is wild.

Same thing with Sonia. Throughout the story, she is portrayed as this kind, maternal figure to Hazel who is doing her best to help her find out what happened to Mia. So to then twist it and have her be this heartless madam who is prostituting these young girls is even more wild, because there are no clues to hint the readers on the true nature of her activities. None at all. 

I don’t really like when authors try to pull a fast one on readers like this. “Oh, this lovely likeable character that you’ve grown attached to? They’re actually the super villain of this whole thing.” Like what? Give us some hints, at least.

Another thing that irked me about this novel is the clichéd existence of poor Kenny Shum. It’s clear that he’s in love with Hazel, but he’s condemned to live in the dreaded friend-zone all while living with her. He cooks for her, listens to her as she praises or laments about the men she is seeing, and Kenny just takes it. Poor guy!

There are also some points where Hazel treats him like a nuisance since she knows he likes her but she wants to go out with Andrew. So she’s basically all, “I look really good right now in this dress! But ugh, Kenny is out in the living room and he’s going to see me looking this good, oh no!”

The fact that Kenny eventually had to save her from Andrew’s schemes, a guy who she literally fell head over heels for so quickly, is one big annoying cliché, I’m sorry to say. It annoyed me that she treated him poorly, just to turn around and desperately need his help when the time came. 

This book also took me a while to get into. I don’t know if it’s the way the book is written or the way Hazel specifically is written, but I found it hard to sympathize with her. I found her annoying at times, which is such a shame.

Like as a private investigator, why wouldn’t she question Andrew DuPont’s sudden appearance in her life and his insistence of getting close with her? She’s in the midst of a dangerous investigation and she lets this unknown man waltz into her life so easily?

I guess Hazel Cho simply isn’t written like the other main character leads in this genre. She doesn’t seem as perceptive or observant or calculating like the rest of them, which made it hard to root for her. 

It was honestly embarrassing at times that when Madeline came searching for her, rightfully so, for updates on the case, Hazel would be waking up or hungover or at Andrew’s house. Where’s the professionalism? No wonder she’s still struggling to make it as a private investigator.

The author also wrote her to be this, “I’m not like other girls” character but the writing made her seem like every other girl down to a T, so that was kind of funny to think about in retrospect.

I’m giving this book 3 stars out of 5 despite all these problems I had with the narrative, mainly because there was a happy ending in which Mia and other young girls were saved from the trafficking ring. I absolutely would have rated it lower if Mia ended up dead or something like that.

Honestly, as I sit here and think about this book again, I am so annoyed by the ‘twist’ if you can even call it that, of Andrew and Sonia being the main people involved in this disgusting ring. Like why? It makes no sense. And the reasoning she gave for getting into this life is so weak.

“My husband died and I was sick of looking after and cleaning up after these little girls so I’ve been selling some of them off to these strange men.” What?! 

Not sure if I’d pick up another book by this author again anytime soon. I know this is the start of a series between Hazel and Kenny becoming partners, but if the way Kenny was treated in this book is indicative of how Hazel will continue to treat him, I’ll pass on any sequels.

Happy reading!