Series: Book 2 in the Detective DD Warren series
Rating: ****
Tags: Fiction, General, Mystery & Detective, Suspense, Thrillers, Mystery fiction, Police, Police - Massachusetts - Boston, Young women - Massachusetts - Boston, Young women, Lang:en
Summary
Starred Review. In bestseller Gardner's first-rate
follow-up to
Alone (2005), Bobby Dodge, once a sniper for the
Massachusetts State Police and now a police detective, gets
called to a horrific crime scene in the middle of the night
by fellow detective and ex-lover D.D. Warren. An underground
chamber has been discovered on the property of a former
Boston mental hospital containing six small naked mummified
female bodies in clear garbage bags. A silver locket with one
of the corpses, which may be decades old, bears the name
Annabelle Granger. Later, a woman shows up at the Boston
Homicide offices claiming to be Annabelle Granger. Her
resemblance to Catherine Gagnon (whose life Bobby saved in
Alone) helps stoke a romance between her and Bobby
both subtle and sizzling. The suspense builds as the police
uncover links between patients at the hospital and long-ago
criminal activities. Through expert use of red herrings,
Gardner takes the reader on a nail-biting ride to the
thrilling climax.
(Feb.)
Starred Review Gardner fans look out: this one will
take your breath away. Near the grounds of an abandoned
mental hospital, a buried chamber is discovered. Inside are
six bodies, one of which may be that of a girl who has been
missing for two decades--the best friend of a woman,
Annabelle, who has spent her childhood moving from city to
city, from identity to identity, hiding from someone or
something totally unknown to her. She's been safe for several
years now, but a single act of bravery plunges her right back
into a life of fear. This is a rich, complex tale that
juggles a handful of mysteries at once. Who is the killer,
and could it be someone connected with a notorious child
murderer? Who or what was Annabelle's family running from?
How did her father, a mathematician, know how to set up
foolproof new identities? And why does an old sketch of a
murder suspect look unsettlingly like Annabelle's father?
Head and shoulders above anything else Gardner's written,
this riveting novel represents the author at the height of
her powers.
David Pitt
From Publishers Weekly
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