A killer is after her best friend

When a body is found in the park, DC Maggie Jamieson’s heart stops dead because the victim looks almost exactly the same as her friend and colleague Kate Moloney., a woman for whom she secretly she has feelings that go beyond friendship. She thinks the killer might be the same person that was stalking Kate by leaving creepy gifts and messages. Then, another girl is abducted in similar circumstances and is later also found dead, dressed and made up to look like the dr. It looks as if he’s practising for his ultimate target and it becomes more and more certain that Kate is the intended prize.
With the life of her friend at stake, Maggie can’t remain her usual focused and clever self and the list of possible perpetrators grows. In retrospect, she misses certain clues, but that’s always easy to say from the sideline. I don’t think she can be accused of negligence. If the investigation takes them in the wrong direction that’s not their fault, they would have been wrong not to look into those things. She even has to work together with Julie, a journalist that accused her wrongly in an earlier case. It leaves to be seen if they come closer together at the end of the book.
Maggie’s friend and colleague Nathan Wright is now acting DS, though happy with the promotion he has to adapt to not being as actively involved in the investigation as he’s used to. Despite not coveting that position herself, sometimes Maggie has problems when he has to comment on her behaviour or attitude. She tends to speak and act before she thinks and some see this as arrogance, even when this is merely enthusiasm.

Though the story is well written and filled with suspense, I think the story self is a bit unlikely. Early on I started thinking, why would he take the substitutes first and only then the real deal? Everything fell more or less into place at the end. I did clock the real killer this time fairly early on (most often, I don’t).
I haven’t read the previous 2 books in this series, but I’ve learned that those also end with the start of a new crime, that will open the story of the next book. You can read this book as a standalone without problems, but in several places, it’s visible that some things have happened prior to this book.
I thank Harper Collins UK, One More Chapter and Netgalley for a free ARC of this book and this is my honest review of it.