Orion Gregory’s Serves You Right is a dark, twisty, and deeply satisfying crime thriller centered around Sydney Livingstone, a former tennis pro turned police detective, who finds herself pulled into the aftermath of a botched murder trial, a vigilante justice campaign, and a rapidly escalating series of brutal revenge killings. At the heart of the story is the acquitted-but-clearly-guilty Frank McBride, whose smug escape from justice sets off a chain of events that rattles an entire community and sends Syd on a collision course with both a killer and her own professional limits.

Right out of the gate, I have to say the writing is gripping. Gregory wastes no time dropping readers into the chaos with a gut-punch opening that doesn’t flinch from violence or moral ambiguity. He’s got a sharp instinct for pacing. Chapters fly by, and even when things quiet down, there’s always an undercurrent of tension pulling you forward. The prose isn’t flashy, but it’s effective. I liked that. There’s no pretension. Gregory writes like he’s trying to entertain, not impress. That said, the structure can get a bit dense at times, especially when the book shifts perspectives rapidly. Still, the characters, particularly Syd, are fully realized, flawed, and human. I rooted for her hard, even when she stumbled.

I was pleasantly surprised by the book’s moral weight. This isn’t your tidy detective story with good guys and bad guys in their corners. Gregory plays in the gray, and he plays dirty. The vigilante plotline, spearheaded by a mysterious online persona known only as “The Enforcer,” hit a nerve. There’s a kind of catharsis in seeing monsters get what’s coming to them, but Gregory doesn’t let us off that easily. He asks real questions about justice, about power, about how far is too far. And while he doesn’t hand us answers, he sure knows how to make us squirm while we look for them.

I’d recommend Serves You Right to fans of gritty police procedurals, psychological thrillers, and morally tangled crime fiction. If you like your stories messy, raw, and a little uncomfortable in the best possible way, then you’ll tear through this one like I did. Gregory doesn’t serve justice on a silver platter. He drops it on your doorstep, blood-spattered and blinking.

Pages: 327 | ASIN : B0FD1ZZCCQ