“Sin was a mystery.”

The novel’s opening line establishes some of the core thematic questions that Alex, Garrett, and Jacqueline contend with. Sin is “mysterious” because, unlike a legal transgression, no one set way exists to address it. Jacqueline and Garrett develop their own way of addressing sin; this motivates the plot of the novel.

“‘I saw three victims and a suspect with a gun.’

‘How would you describe the atmosphere inside that room?’

‘Tense…’”

This courtroom dialogue exchange between Garrett and Officer Diaz shows how the novel builds dialogue in a way that keeps long courtroom sections moving quickly. The text dispenses with dialogue tags entirely, instead allowing readers to follow the conversation as though listening to something spoken. Because these exchanges happen between only two characters, the novel doesn’t need to signal who is speaking; the structure of the line of questioning accomplishes this.

“Instead of help, what Alexandra Quinlan got were weeks and weeks of headlines accusing her of killing her family—because we all know that in the news media, if it bleeds, it leads.”

Garrett’s statement about how the media treated Alex after her family’s murders illustrates the novel’s attitude toward the relationship between true crime stories and the media. Garrett is deeply critical of how the media exploits such stories; this criticism belies the guilt he feels over his role in Alex’s family’s murders.