SERPENT LOOP

After witnessing a stabbing at a carnival, a man goes to great lengths to protect his sister, who knew the victim, in this thriller sequel.

Twenty-six-year-old Zane Clearwater isn’t having an easy time raising his 15-year-old sister, Lettie. He works a maintenance job at the zoo as well as a summer job at the carnival to be able to afford the rent for their two-bedroom apartment. A fight breaks out between two inebriated men at the carnival, resulting in one of them getting stabbed; the perpetrator flees, and as the victim lies bleeding, he calls out Lettie’s name. She tries to comfort him, but he dies in an ambulance. Later, when Zane asks his sister about the dead man, it’s clear that she’s hiding something that truly scares her. When the killer pays a visit to their home, Zane understands that his sibling could be the next to die. He pulls her from her class at school and takes her to their grandmother’s place, but before long, the girl goes missing, and Zane must work together with Lettie’s boyfriend, Angel, to find her and bring her home. Lipinski, who wrote Bloodlines(2015), returns with a gripping and well-paced follow-up. The novel offers action from the get-go and then paints a vivid picture of the relationship between Zane and his sister. He’s clearly shown to be traumatized by his past, in which his father killed his mother, but he cares deeply for his similarly scarred sibling and does everything he can to provide for her; he lacks a support system but does his best with what he’s given. But although his perspective is clear, readers may wish that the novel offered more of Lettie’s side of the story and provided more insight into the siblings’ relationship. Indeed, readers only get glimpses of Lettie’s personality, which keeps her from truly coming alive on the page.

An often engaging novel with a perceptive protagonist but uneven characterization.