4. Unpunished by Lisa Black

#2 Renner & Gardiner

listened on Audible

2017
320 pgs.
Adult Police Procedural
Finished 1/9/23
Goodreads rating: 3.60
My rating: 2.5
Setting: Contemporary 

My comments:  If you're interested in the newspaper publishing business and how it's dying and want to be lectured ad nauseam about it, this is the book for you.  It wasn't particularly the book for me.  The other half of the book, the actual mystery, was okay.... 

Goodreads synopsis:  Maggie Gardiner, a forensic expert who studies the dead, and Jack Renner, a homicide cop who stalks the living, form an uneasy partnership to solve a series of murders in this powerful new thriller by the bestselling author of That Darkness.

It begins with the kind of bizarre death that makes headlines--literally. A copy editor at the Cleveland Herald is found hanging above the grinding wheels of the newspaper assembly line, a wide strap wrapped around his throat. Forensic investigator Maggie Gardiner has her suspicions about this apparent suicide inside the tsunami of tensions that is the news industry today--and when the evidence suggests murder, Maggie has no choice but to place her trust in the one person she doesn't trust at all . . .

Jack Renner is a killer with a conscience, a vigilante with his own code of honor. In the past, Jack has used his skills and connections as a homicide detective to take the law into his own hands, all in the name of justice. He has only one problem: Maggie knows his secret. She insists he enforce the law, not subvert it. But when more newspaper employees are slain, Jack may be the only person who can help Maggie unmask the killer-- even if Jack is still checking names off his own private murder list.

9. That Darkness by Lisa Black

#1 Gardiner & Renner

listened on Audible - also have on Kindle
narrated by Kirsten Potter
Unabridged audio (9:03)
2016
308 pgs.

Contemporary Adult Mystery
Finished 2/4/2021
Goodreads rating: 3.49 - 1699 ratings
My rating: 4
Setting: Contemporary Cleveland, Ohio 

First line/s: "The room wasn't much, just a steel table and chairs, old paint on the walls with the occasional rust stain, two windows frosted by contact paper and a battered desk in the corner, well out of splattering range."

My comments: The story worked just fine for me, flipping back-and-forth between two protagonists to get each point of view pretty clearly.  One is a cop who is a serial killer, only killing the ultra-bad guy who gets away with his/her crime and the other a forensic pathologist who's expert at fingerprint and little piees of lint, lol!  It's how they come together at the end, to an uneasy truce of sorts.  There are more coming in the series, I wonder where the author will go?

Goodreads synopsis:  As a forensic investigator for the Cleveland Police Department, Maggie Gardiner has seen her share of Jane Does. The latest is an unidentified female in her early teens, discovered in a local cemetery. More shocking than the girl’s injuries—for Maggie at least—is the fact that no one has reported her missing. She and the detectives assigned to the case (including her cop ex-husband) are determined to follow every lead, run down every scrap of evidence. But the monster they seek is watching each move, closer to them than they could ever imagine.

          Jack Renner is a killer. He doesn’t murder because he savors it, or because he believes himself omnipotent, or for any reason other than to make the world a safer place. When he follows the trail of this Jane Doe to a locked room in a small apartment where eighteen teenaged girls are anything but safe, he knows something must be done. But his pursuit of their captor takes an unexpected turn.
          Maggie Gardiner finds another body waiting for her in the autopsy room—and a host of questions that will challenge everything she believes about justice, morality, and the true nature of evil...

58. Looking Glass by Andrew Mayne

# 2 Dr. Theo Cray
Listened on Audible
2018, Thomas & Mercer
312 pgs.
Adult Mystery
Finished 6/30/2018
Goodreads rating:  4.36 - 4196 ratings
My rating: 4
Setting: Contemporary LA & Atlanta

First line/s:  "I'm playing a video game in which someone could actually get killed."

My comments:  Andrew Mayne thrusts you into the mind of a scientist, and reading these books are more than just solving mysteries.  You learn and hear a lot about science and technology that is perhaps "over your head," and a bit unbelievable (some may actually be so!), but entirely interesting and almost-believable.  And Dr. Cray is a really likable oddball.

Goodreads synopsis: Professor Theo Cray caught one of the most prolific serial killers in history using revolutionary scientific methods. Cut off from university research because of the shroud of suspicion around him after the death of his former student and the aftermath of catching his quarry, Cray tries to rebuild his life but finds himself drawn into another unsolved case.
       The desperate father of a missing child, ignored by the authorities and abandoned by his community, turns to Theo for help. The only clues are children’s drawings and an inner-city urban legend about someone called the Toy Man.
       To unravel the mystery behind the Toy Man, Theo must set aside his scientific preconceptions and embrace a world where dreams and nightmares carry just as much weight as reality. As he becomes immersed in the case, he discovers a far-reaching conspiracy—one that hasn’t yet claimed its last victim.

12. The Naturalist by Andrew Mayne

The Naturalist #1 (Biologist Prof. Theo Cray)
read on my iPhone/Kindle/Book/Audible
2017, Thomas & Mercer
382 pgs.
Adult Murder Mystery
Finished 1/24/18
Goodreads rating:  4.11 - 12,741 ratings
My rating:   3
Setting: Contemporary Montana

First line/s:  "The woods were wrong."

My comments: Professor Theo Cray is a brilliant scientist.  He's also an incredible bumblefuck.  He really cracks me up.  He does all sorts of illegal digging up and dancing around, but comes out smelling like a rose.  He uses his scientific expertise, ultra-computer savvy, and plain old hutzpa to find a serial killer that no one even realizes exists.  And no matter how many times he is hurt or wounded, he just keeps getting up and going like an energizer bunny.  This was a fun, though unbelievable, book to read.  There's going to be a second one coming out, and I'm sure I'll get a boot out of it, too.

Goodreads synopsis: Professor Theo Cray is trained to see patterns where others see chaos. So when mutilated bodies found deep in the Montana woods leave the cops searching blindly for clues, Theo sees something they missed. Something unnatural. Something only he can stop.
          As a computational biologist, Theo is more familiar with digital code and microbes than the dark arts of forensic sleuthing. But a field trip to Montana suddenly lands him in the middle of an investigation into the bloody killing of one of his former students. As more details, and bodies, come to light, the local cops determine that the killer is either a grizzly gone rogue… or Theo himself. Racing to stay one step ahead of the police, Theo must use his scientific acumen to uncover the killer. Will he be able to become as cunning as the predator he hunts—before he becomes its prey?

22. Red Mist - Patricia Cornwell

Kay Scarpetta #19

Audio read by

11 unabridged cds

2011 Putnam Adult

512 pgs.

Adult Mystery

Finished 3/15/2015

Goodreads rating: 3.70

My rating:   4 - Excellent story

PBS

Contemporary Savannah, GA

My comments:  I haven't read a Kay Scarpetta novel in years and years, so when this audio book "fell" into my hands I decided to take another look/listen.  I still find Scarpetta self-absorbed, haughty, and unlikable, but the mystery and the story surrounding it are fascinating.  Cornwell can certainly spin an interesting tale....interesting, gruesome, and actually, quite believable.....

Goodreads book summary: Determined to find out what happened to her former deputy chief, Jack Fielding, murdered six months earlier, Kay Scarpetta travels to the Georgia Prison for Women, where an inmate has information not only on Fielding, but also on a string of grisly killings. The murder of an Atlanta family years ago, a young woman on death row, and the inexplicable deaths of homeless people as far away as California seem unrelated. But Scarpetta discovers connections that compel her to conclude that what she thought ended with Fielding's death and an attempt on her own life is only the beginning of something far more destructive: a terrifying terrain of conspiracy and potential terrorism on an international scale. And she is the only one who can stop it.