MoMoBookDiary

📖 Book Description

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📚 Publication Details

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🌟 Book Tour

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✍️ About the Author

A.J. Cross

A.J. Cross is a forensic psychologist with over twenty years’ experience in the field. She lives in Birmingham with her jazz-musician husband. As well as the Will Traynor series, she is the author of five Kate Hanson Cold Case mysteries.

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👩🏻‍💻 My Review

A Mystery That Gave Me Plenty to Think About

The Fatal End is the second book in the Teigan Craft Forensic Mysteries and, although I hadn’t read the first, I had no difficulty following the plot. The idea of a neurodivergent forensic psychologist working alongside the police on a murder investigation is what immediately caught my attention. I approached the book expecting a police procedural style of crime thriller, which initially left me questioning why the forensic psychologist was so directly involved and, at times, appeared to be pursuing leads independently of the police. It was only later that I realised it reminded me much more of a television crime drama, where specialist characters can be at the heart of solving the crime. Looking back at it from that perspective made much more sense of what I had been questioning while reading.

The writing style itself wasn’t really for me. I prefer a little more description to help me picture the characters and their surroundings, and without that I found it harder to fully connect. There was, however, a good mystery at the heart of the story, with different strands developing as the investigation progressed, some I thought I could connect whilst others had me wondering where on earth they were going.

I was interested to see how the neurodivergent aspect of the character would be worked into the novel. There were some details around sensory overload and self-regulation that worked well, although at other times it felt uncomfortable. I had hoped the author may have used the character to explore how being neurodivergent could influence a forensic psychologist’s perspective, including the way information was processed and connections made.

The mystery itself kept me curious throughout and I enjoyed forming my own theories as the story progressed. I did work out who was responsible, although my theory about why turned out to be very different from the eventual explanation, and guessing the culprit never bothers me in a crime novel. For me, the enjoyment is as much about discovering how and why everything fits together as it is about being surprised by who is responsible. Although I had the answers I wanted by the end, the way everything came together didn’t quite give me the sense of satisfaction I had been hoping for.

Overall, The Fatal End gave me plenty to think about, both while I was reading and, perhaps even more so, once I’d finished. While there were elements that didn’t work for me, I think this was also a case of the book I expected to read being rather different from the one that was actually on the page.

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DISCLOSURE: I received a review copy of this book from Zooloo’s Book Tours.

#TheFatalEnd #AJCross #TeiganCraft
#SevernHouse #JoffeBooks #ZooloosBookTours

MoMoBookDiary Index

MoMoBookDiary Index

• Author
  • A.J. Cross
• Title
  • The Fatal End
• Series
  • Teigan Craft Forensic Mysteries
• Publisher
  • Severn House
• Genre
  • Crime Fiction
• Setting
  • Birmingham, England, UK
• Source
  • Book Tour – Zooloo’s Book Tours
• Date Read
  • 24-25 September 2026
• Review Shared
  • Amazon
  • Goodreads
  • The StoryGraph
• Content Notes
  • X
• Archive Checked
  • X