Black Heart

I’ll admit, I rolled my eyes at first. Another dead banker? Another detective with a tragic past? But *Black Heart* disarmed me within chapters. Weatherley’s writing is deceptively sparse—no purple prose, just razor-edged dialogue and observations that cut to the bone. Take the scene where Riley interviews the victim’s colleague: a single line about ‘the way his fingers tapped the desk, like he was calculating interest on a loan’ tells you everything about the man’s soul. The plot unfolds like a financial audit—methodical, relentless, with every anomaly flagged for deeper scrutiny. And just when you think you’ve spotted the weak link, the story pivots. James Lailey’s performance is *exceptional*, but not in a showy way. His Riley isn’t a brooding cliché; he’s a man who’s seen too much to be shocked but not enough to stop caring. The supporting cast, though, is where Lailey shines—each suspect’s voice is distinct, from the widow’s honeyed venom to the smarmy lawyer whose every ‘um’ and ‘ah’ screams *guilty*. My only gripe? The mid-book lull where subplots about Riley’s personal life feel tacked on, as if Weatherley suddenly remembered she needed to ‘humanize’ him. And while the ending lands with a gut punch, the final reveal hinges on a detail so subtle you might miss it if you’re not paying attention (which, honestly, feels a bit cheap). Still, this is a thriller that trusts its audience to connect the dots—and that’s rarer than it should be.