Oh my word.
Discovered a new-to-me author again, this time compliments of my youngest sister Jill.
He writes about psychological thrillers/mysteries. Very fast-paced and excellent plot!
The author used to be an investigative journalist. You can kind of tell by his writing. Love this guy and he reminds me of Patterson minus the frenetic pace of Patterson novels. (Alex Cross novels...some of my very faves!)
STORY SUMMARY
Early one Sunday morning, a mother (Elizabeth Crowe) and her teenage daughter Harper Crowe, are discovered murdered in their farmhouse. Elizabeth was stabbed over 30 times in brutal fashion. Harper was found lying in the Sleeping Beauty position, clearly posed. Of course, Dominic Crowe, the father of Harper and husband of Elizabeth, is one of the first suspects, as is their stepson, Eliot Crowe, a drug addict. Even the farm boy, Tommy Garrett, from the neighboring farm is a suspect.
Who killed Elizabeth and Harper?? and WHY??
and why was there an open Bible on the coffee table??
Joe O'Loughlin, the forensic psychologist, was called in by the DCS boss Veronica Cray, known as Ronnie Cray. His good friend and detective, Ruiz is also assigned to the case.
One of Joe's former students, a young man named Milo Coleman who labels himself "the mindhunter" has jeopardized the investigation by leaking some details to the media. This of course stirs up much public anger and alarm.
Joe begins to discover a link between the farmhouse murders and a number of vicious attacks where the victims are choked unconscious and left with a horrible scar carved into their foreheads reminiscent of The Scarlet Letter.
And then one victim dies......
.......and all hell breaks loose.
Joe's oldest daughter Charlie, a senior in high school, wants to help Joe with parts of the investigation. Her mother, Julianne, whom Joe is separated from, is not keen on the idea but Charlie wants to major in Psychology once she is at university. Between keeping an eye on her little sister Emma, aged 10 and helping her dad, she is busy. Julianne, meanwhile, has been recently diagnosed with ovarian cancer and has asked Joe to come back to their home to live. Will their marriage be put back together during this ordeal??
As all the clues begin to come together like a well put together puzzle, and just when they think they have the perpetrator, the unthinkable happens!!
Emma and Charlie are snatched by the perpetrator.
And Joe is left trying to not only save his daughters' lives, but tries to capture this perp before more people are wounded and killed.
Will he succeed??
MY THOUGHTS
Wow. A gripping fast paced book that I really had trouble putting down and getting to bed on time!
The setting was well done and the perpetrator's voice opens the story. Each chapter that is in the perp's voice is like we the reader are inside his mind hearing this thoughts. In fact, the author puts the entire chapter in italics. Then the next chapter will be the actual story. It continues like this until you think you know the perpetrator.
I was totally shocked by the actual perp and by the ending.
The only negative things I have to say about this book are that there were several editing errors and the language used in the perp's voice was just yucky. Swearing and gutter talk. A real turn off for me and which I won't give a 10.
Other than that, the actual plot is brilliant, the character development is amazing and now I want to read his earlier books. It appears that Joe O'Laughlin is a main character in the other novels as well.
In my opinion, this book is appropriate for ages 17 and older (due to some mature content).
On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the highest, I rate this a 9.
1 comment:
I probably won't pick it up just because of the language. Too many other books on my pile to read.
Post a Comment