I love Michael Robotham! In 2015, I read The Night Ferry, then in 2016 I was KNOCKED OUT by Close Your Eyes! 2017’s The Secrets She Keeps was not quite as terrific (for me) as the other two, so maybe that is how I missed 2019’s Good Girl, Bad Girl. It was the first in a series, apparently — and now we are in 2020 and we have the second book in the series featuring Cyrus Haven. Cyrus is a psychologist who turns out to be a former student of Joe O’Loughlin, the protagonist of Robotham’s primary series.  The two men (Cyrus and Joe) have quite a bit in common. Besides being psychologists, each is a kind of wounded soul: Joe has Parkinson’s and a crappy marriage, and Cyrus is living with the knowledge that his wacko brother killed the entire rest of the family. OK, crappy and wacko are not the kindest terms for these two, but here we are!

Of course, I had to go back and read Good Girl, Bad Girl, which tells the story of Cyrus meeting Evie Cormac when he was called in to help after she was found trapped in a torture house. Evie has the uncanny ability to tell when someone is lying, and she helped Cyrus solve a tricky case in that first book. Now, in When She Was Good, Evie and Cyrus reconnect and, as Cyrus works to uncover the secrets of Evie’s past, he finds he is exposing her to serious danger. Dilemma time! Find the answer and risk her safety, or…?

Robotham is terrific at creating characters with whom the reader can become emotionally invested, and in presenting convoluted plotlines in a way that is fun without being overwhelming. I love this author! Great escape-from-pandemic reading! Five stars.