Sarah-Hope's Reviews > Wordhunter

CW: The main reason I gave this title three stars was that the mystery at its center is about sexual assault and disappearances of children. The author doesn't bludgeon us with horrors, but I just feel uneasy when something like this shows up in my "entertainment." There's also an explosive character prone to physical and psychological violence.

What drew me to Wordhunter was the premise of a mystery novel whose central character is a forensic linguist. I was curious to see how the author would depict that field and what kind of person she's create to embody it. Maggie Moore, our forensic linguist (actually, she's still studying forensic linguistics) is rather a hot mess outside of her area of expertise. Poor self care, alcohol and drug use, a personal history of what can best be described as mind-bogglingly poor choices in sexual partners. There's effective backstory to explain this, but, goodness, she gives a reader a lot to worry about.

Like many such novels, Wordhunter explores the pairing of a professional-amateur investigative duo. Maggie is the amateur half of that team, with hopes of working in investigation/law enforcement, but no real experience yet. Detective Jackson is a deeply committed, by-the-books sort of guy (with problems of his own), who finds Maggie's baggage overwhelming. He wants to keep her in a "civilian" box. She's itching to be a "real" investigator.

The parts involving forensic linguistics were interesting—and leave me willing to try another book by this author with this character set should one appear. I appreciate the care with which Maggie insists that she can't make definitive statements about suspects. She can just offer word-based clues that may suggest bits oabout a suspect's history or the "character" the suspect is trying to come across as to the law enforcement community. Nonetheless, Maggie is able to pull key clues from very small pieces of evidence. Would this be true in real life? I don't know, but I have my doubts.

The unabomber case is offered as an example of the kinds of conclusions that forensic linguistics can lead to—but in the unabomber case analysts had a great deal of previous writing by the suspect and a 35,000-word manifesto to work with. Over the course of this case, Maggie is working with a few brief notes and a handful of equally brief text messages. So I'm not sure I buy some central elements of the puzzle, but I am curious to see where the author can take things next.

I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via Edelweiss; the opinions are my own.