What I look for in a book is something to make me think and ask questions. This book was perfect for that. I've actually never read anything by Tami Hoag before but after readiing this the first thing I did was search for her other books because I thought she was that good.
Essentially this book focuses on the gruesome murder of a vivacious, attractive artist - the only witness is her barely alive daughter claiming, "Daddy hurt my mummy!". And so the search for "Daddy" begins. The main character is Anne, a child advocate and a victim to a potential murder. So as you can imagine, Anne attempts to help Haley (the young witness) recover whilst her husband discovers as much as he can about Marrissa Fordham (Haley's murdered mother).
There are an uncountable number of twists and turns - a really good read. Hoag left clues within the chapters for those people who like to figure it out along the way. I have to admit I am a culprit of this and the reason I have awarded this 4 instead of 5 stars is that I figured it out. Still fantastic and the twists are really interesting. I loved the way she described everything so beautifully, she wasn't at all delicate which was great - the description of the murder victim when she was found was enough to make my jaw actually drop.
I recommend this, I can't compare it to previous novels since I haven't read any, but a brilliant stand-alone; I can't wait to check out her other work.