How you dealt with the fact that one of you belonged in a prison cell, and the other should be facilitating that. And then they said they loved you too, and you kissed, and the credits rolled. Wasn’t that what you were supposed to do? You were almost out of the building or on the plane or driving home in the rain, and then suddenly you turned around and raced back and told the other person how you felt.

When it turns out that Henry is linked in some ways to what's happening, it's up to Mac to decide whether he can trust Henry or not. Mac's distracted by Henry's shenanigans, but also by the fact that he's come under investigation for some pretty serious charges at the Bureau. Viola is in some trouble and Henry is determined to investigate the matter, much to Mac's consternation as Henry goes 'undercover' as his twin sister to discover if there's an Angel of Death at his sister's care home. Mac and Henry are back and the story picks up just where The Two Gentlemen of Altona left with Henry racing to his twin sister, Viola's, side. He even managed to kept me enthralled at a point when, if reading, I would have thrown the book across the room in a fit of pique. Russo does such a fantastic job with all the characters voices and the tone of the story.

In the end, though, it's the narration that once again takes center stage and continues to blow me away. It's also really interesting to see the threads woven from the start starting to finally show a pattern in the overarching mystery of the series and it makes me all the more anxious to find out what's really happening. While the story didn't pack the same punch for me that The Two Gentlemen of Altona did, it's entertaining, mainly thanks to Henry's continued misbehavior.

The Merchant of Death by Lisa Henry