Trace of Evil starts like greased lightening but quickly slows to crawl. Natalie is a the only woman police detective in her town so she is saddled with a cold case of nine missing women. This case is a thorn in my side because very little is worked on or really investigated until the end of this story. The main story unfolds with Natalie's investigating the death of a school teacher who is also her older sister, Grace's best friend. Natalie is haunted by the death of her other sisterFast paced plot with a great protagonist, barely a toe dipped into romance - I'm definitely intrigued to see where that storyline is going, witchcraft in a small town, and crimes stretching back decades. I loved the fact that there were multiple, very intricate, paths that the plot could have taken that would all have led to a plausible ending, and then BAM! Completely out of left field ending that I wasn't at all expecting.