34. A Cold Trail by Robert Dugoni

#7 Tracy Crosswhite

listened on Audible

355 pgs.

2020
Adult mystery/police procedural
Finished 7/21/2025
Goodreads rating: 4.37
My rating: 4.25
Setting: contemporary Cedar Grove, WA

My comments:  In this, the 7th in a series, Dugoni changes up the setting a bit (back to Tracy's hometown) and gives us yet another solid mystery.  With her 2-month old daughter, almost-too-perfect husband, a new Irish nanny, and visits from her Seattle partner, Tracy solves a cold-case murder that's bothered her for over 20 years.

Goodreads synopsis:  “Tracy Crosswhite is one of the best protagonists in the realm of crime fiction today, and there is nothing cold about A Cold Trail.” —Associated Press

In New York Times bestselling author Robert Dugoni’s riveting series, Seattle homicide detective Tracy Crosswhite returns home to a brutal murder and her haunted past.

The last time homicide detective Tracy Crosswhite was in Cedar Grove, it was to see her sister’s killer put behind bars. Now she’s returned for a respite and the chance to put her life back in order for herself, her attorney husband, Dan, and their new daughter. But tragic memories soon prove impossible to escape.

Dan is drawn into representing a local merchant whose business is jeopardized by the town’s revitalization. And Tracy is urged by the local PD to put her own skills to work on a new the brutal murder of a police officer’s wife and local reporter who was investigating a cold-case slaying of a young woman. As Tracy’s and Dan’s cases crisscross, Tracy’s trail becomes dangerous. It’s stirring up her own haunted past and a decades-old conspiracy in Cedar Grove that has erupted in murder. Getting to the truth is all that matters. But what’s Tracy willing to risk as a killer gets closer to her and threatens everyone she loves?

33. Nightshade by Michael Connelly

#1 Det. Stilwel, Catalina Island, CA

listened on Libby

345 pgs.

2025
Adult Murder Mystery
Finished 7/14/2025
Goodreads rating: 4.16
My rating: 4.5
Setting: Contemporary Catalina Island, California

My comments: A new character and a new setting for Michael Connelly!  "Stil" is a detective on Catalina Island, which looks like its main offices are in Long Beach (not LA).  He's been sent there for unwarranted reasons, all the cops they want to "get rid of" are sent there.  He's got a girlfriend and has come to very much like living and working on the island.  Then all sorts of you-know-what hits the fan.  Robberies, beheadings of protected wildlife, murder....and more.  A HUGE variety of partially related problems that keep him on his toes.  He's smart and he's good at what he does, although he's pretty abrasive.  I'm not sure if I 100% like him, so I'm looking forward (already!) to the next in the series so I can form a better opinion.

Goodreads synopsis:  #1 New York Times bestselling author Michael Connelly introduces a new cop relentlessly following his mission in the seemingly idyllic setting of Catalina island.

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Detective Stilwell has been “exiled” to a low-key post policing rustic Catalina Island, after department politics drove him off a homicide desk on the mainland. But while following up the usual drunk-and-disorderlies and petty thefts that come with his new territory, Detective Stilwell gets a report of a body found weighed down at the bottom of the harbor—a Jane Doe identifiable at first only by a streak of purple dye in her hair. At the same time, a report of poaching on a protected reserve turns into a case fraught with violence and danger as Stilwell digs into the shady past of an island bigwig.

Crossing all lines of protocol and jurisdiction, Stilwell doggedly works both cases. Though hampered by an old beef with an ex-colleague determined to thwart him at every turn, he is convinced he is the only one who can bring justice to the woman known as “Nightshade.” Soon, his investigation uncovers closely guarded secrets and a dark heart to the serene island that was meant to be his escape from the evils of the big city.

27. Return to Sender by Craig Johnson

#21 Walt Longmire

listened on Libby - read by George Guidall

335 pgs.

2025
Adult mystery
Finished 6/19/25
Goodreads rating: 4.32
My rating: 4
Setting: contemporary Montana "red desert"

My comments: So many obstacles to overcome, but good ole Walt stays calm and figures out how to outsmart the bad guys over and over again.

Goodreads synopsis:  When Blair McGowan, the mail person with the longest postal route in the country of over three hundred mile a day, goes missing the question becomes—where do you look for her? The Postal Inspector for the State of Wyoming elicits Sheriff Longmire to mount an investigation into her disappearance and Walt does everything but mail it in; posing as a letter-carrier himself, the good sheriff follows her trail and finds himself enveloped in the intrigue of an otherworldly cult.

Packed to the brim with twists and turns, the 21st novel in the New York Times bestselling Longmire series pushes Walt to his absolute limits, forcing him to wrestle with the impossible What good are your morals, if you’re marked for the dead letter office?

16. A Steep Price by Robert Dugoni

#6 Tracy Crosswhite

listened on Audible

410 pgs.

2018
Adult Police Procedural
Finished 4/10/2025
Goodreads rating: 4.38
My rating: 4.5
Setting: Contemporary Seattle

My comments: Although depressing, this mystery was super interesting and kept me on my toes, looking forward to returning each time I had to stop reading.  There are two (interesting) cases going on at once, Tracy is pregnant, and we get much more acquainted with Fazio and his wife Vera, who has just discovered she has breast cancer. 

Goodreads synopsis:  Called in to consult after a young woman disappears, Tracy Crosswhite has the uneasy feeling that this is no ordinary missing-persons case. When the body turns up in an abandoned well, Tracy’s suspicions are confirmed. Estranged from her family, the victim had balked at an arranged marriage and had planned to attend graduate school. But someone cut her dreams short.

Solving the mystery behind the murder isn’t Tracy’s only challenge. The detective is keeping a secret of her she’s pregnant. And now her biggest fear seems to be coming true when a new detective arrives to replace her. Meanwhile, Tracy’s colleague Vic Fazzio is about to take a fall after his investigation into the murder of a local community activist turns violent and leaves an invaluable witness dead.

Two careers are on the line. And when more deadly secrets emerge, jobs might not be the only things at risk.

10. The Vanishing Season by Joanna Schaffhausen

#1 Ellery Hathaway

listened on Libby

274 pgs. (8:58)

2017
Adult mystery/thriller
Finished 3/1/2025
Goodreads rating: 3.81
My rating: 4
Setting: contemporary small town central Massachusetts

My comments: Ellery had been the victim of a serial killer, saved in the nick of time by a young FBI agent named Agent Reed Markham. Years later she's a top in a small Massachusetts town where no one knows her identity.  However, for the past three years she's been receiving ominous anonymous birthday cards, and there has been three annual disappearances, all at the beginning of the month of July.  She knows something is awry.  So she gets in touch with that FBI agent from fourteen years ago and more problems ensue.  This is good storytelling and kept me quite attentive.  Sick minds.  Very sick minds. A very bad guy and his equally-as-bad copycat. 

    Note:  Abrupt ending

    Another note:  I never really liked or trusted the protagonist, I'm not sure why.....

Goodreads:  Ellery Hathaway knows a thing or two about serial killers, but not through her police training. She's an officer in sleepy Woodbury, MA, where a bicycle theft still makes the newspapers. No one there knows she was once victim number seventeen in the grisly story of serial killer Francis Michael Coben. The only one who lived.

When three people disappear from her town in three years―all around her birthday―Ellery fears someone knows her secret. Someone very dangerous. Her superiors dismiss her concerns, but Ellery knows the vanishing season is coming and anyone could be next. She contacts the one man she knows will believe her: the FBI agent who saved her from a killer all those years ago.

Agent Reed Markham made his name and fame on the back of the Coben case, but his fortunes have since turned. His marriage is in shambles, his bosses think he's washed up, and worst of all, he blew a major investigation. When Ellery calls him, he can’t help but wonder: sure, he rescued her, but was she ever truly saved? His greatest triumph is Ellery’s waking nightmare, and now both of them are about to be sucked into the past, back to the case that made them...with a killer who can't let go.

5. Deep into the Dark by P. J. Tracy

#1 in a series about an LA Female cop (Det. Margaret Nolan), although she wasn't really the protagonist in this first book....

listened on Audible

339 pgs.

2021
Adult murder mystery/police procedural
Finished 1/29/25
Goodreads rating: 3.77
My rating: 4
Setting: contemporary LA

My comments: Sam Easton is an Afghanistan war vet with some shattered (and recurring) memories who becomes deeply involved in a series of murders that become more and more related to him.  Tracy's writing is eloquent, I really love the way she puts words together!  Looking forward to more of her writing.

Goodreads synopsis:  Sam Easton—a true survivor—is home from Afghanistan, trying to rebuild a life in his hometown of LA. Separated from his wife, bartending and therapy sessions are what occupy his days and nights. When friend and colleague Melody Traeger is beaten by her boyfriend, she turns to Sam for help. When the boyfriend turns up dead the next day, a hard case like Sam is the perfect suspect.

But LAPD Detective Margaret Nolan, whose brother recently died serving overseas, is sympathetic to Sam's troubles, and can't quite see him as a killer. She's more interested in the secrets Melody might be keeping and the developments in another murder case on the other side of town.

71. The Burning by Linda Castillo

#16 Kate Burkholder

listened on Libby

320 pgs.

2024
Adult murder mystery/police procedural
Finished 8/21/24
Goodreads rating: 4.30
My rating: 4.5
Setting: Contemporary Amish country Ohio

My comments: This was a good one, although Kate was assaulted and quite badly injured numerous times and got out of it quite well each time, which is sort of hard to believe.  I guess she's more like superwoman than I had originally thought.  And in this one, the original murder was particularly grizzly in that a guy, admittedly a really, really bad guy, was burned at the stake.  It tickles me that Castillo can come up with so many plots that are quite varied from each other, as was this one.

Goodreads synopsis:  Chief of Police Kate Burkholder investigates a gruesome murder that reveals a little-known chapter of early Amish history in this new installment of the bestselling series by Linda Castillo.

Newlywed Chief of Police Kate Burkholder is awakened by an urgent midnight call summoning her to a suspicious fire in the woods. When she arrives at the scene, she discovers a charred body. According to the coroner, the deceased, an Amish man named Milan Swanz, was chained to a stake and burned alive. It is an appalling and eerily symbolic crime against an upstanding husband and father.

Kate knows all too well that the Amish prefer to handle their problems without interference from the outside world, and no one will speak about the murdered man. From what she’s able to piece together, Swanz led a deeply tr30oubled life and had recently been excommunicated. But if that’s the case, why are the Amish so reluctant to talk about him? Are they protecting the memory of one of their own? Or are they afraid of something they dare not share?

When her own brother is implicated in the case, Kate finds herself not only at odds with the Amish, the world of which she was once a part, but also the English community and her counterparts in law enforcement. The investigation takes a violent turn when Kate’s life is threatened by a mysterious stranger.

To uncover the truth about the death of Milan Swanz, Kate must dive deep into the Anabaptist culture, peering into all the dark corners of its history, only to uncover a secret legacy that shatters everything she thought she knew about the Amish themselves―and her own roots.

21. The Postscript Murders by Elly Griffiths

#2 Harbinder Kaur

listened on Libby (I think)
315 pgs. (9;09)
2020
Adult Murder Mystery

Finished 3/18/2024
Goodreads rating: 3.93
My rating: 3.5
Setting: Contemporary Britain

My comments: 3.5  Mystery writers are being murdered, beginning with a 90-year-old woman who is a whiz at figuring out "who dunnit."  An interesting group of characters gather together to figure out what's going on.  Definitely not as good as Ruth Galloway, which I was a bit hopeful for, but entertaining.

Goodreads synopsis:  Murder leaps off the page when crime novelists begin to turn up dead in this intricate new novel by internationally best-selling author Elly Griffiths, a literary mystery perfect for fans of Anthony Horowitz and Agatha Christie.

The death of a ninety-year-old woman with a heart condition should not be suspicious. Detective Sergeant Harbinder Kaur certainly sees nothing out of the ordinary when Peggy’s caretaker, Natalka, begins to recount Peggy Smith’s passing.

But Natalka had a reason to be at the police station: while clearing out Peggy’s flat, she noticed an unusual number of crime novels, all dedicated to Peggy. And each psychological thriller included a mysterious postscript: PS: for PS. When a gunman breaks into the flat to steal a book and its author is found dead shortly thereafter—Detective Kaur begins to think that perhaps there is no such thing as an unsuspicious death after all.

And then things escalate: from an Aberdeen literary festival to the streets of Edinburgh, writers are being targeted. DS Kaur embarks on a road trip across Europe and reckons with how exactly authors can think up such realistic crimes . . .

19. The Man Burned by Winter by Pete Zacharias

#1 Rooker Lindstrom

listened on Audible/Kindle Unlimited
335 pgs.
2022
Adult Murder Mystery/Police Procedural/Serial Killer

Finished 3/6/2024
Goodreads rating: 4.10
My rating: 4 (with reservation,  hard to rate)
Setting: Contemporary 

My comments: This took me a little while to get into but ended up being a solid mystery.  Something happened at the very end of the book, though, that I didn't understand because I must have missed a tiny something somewhere earlier; the boy delivering the package containing the last painting; a boy with a scarred hand that Rooker recognized.  (Later note:  oh my, this was explained in one of the reviews on Goodreads by "Shivam," thank goodness!)  I get the feeling this may be the introduction to another story?     

     The protagonist, Rooker Lindstrom, a man with an agonizingly horrible past, a man who has sustained incredible psychological abuse - as well as physical - a man raised by a psychopath who killed, then beheaded many women - becomes the hero of the story.  I can't wait to read more about his upcoming life and escapades.  

     Lots of confusion in the storytelling, as well as a dozen red herrings.  I still totally enjoyed it, but not sure how to rate it because of flaws.....

Goodreads synopsis:  An investigative journalist on the edge. A serial killer testing his limits. What they have in common can freeze the blood.

Still reeling from a personal tragedy, investigative journalist Rooker Lindström finds a grim hideaway from the world. It’s the dilapidated cabin on Minnesota’s Deer Lake bequeathed to him by his late father—one of the most notorious serial killers in the state. If the walls of this murder house could talk, they’d scream.

Detective Tess Harlow needs something from Rooker only he can provide: a window into the mind of a murderer. A copycat is on the prowl, following in the footsteps of Rooker’s father. After reluctantly agreeing to take on the role of consultant, Rooker makes a chilling discovery. Every victim—five and counting—is a depraved taunt meant only for him. Rooker is not just tracking a killer playing sick games. In this brutal Minnesota winter, Rooker is confronting his past.

Maybe working with Tess is Rooker’s last chance at redemption. But to outrun his father’s legacy, he must follow a darker path still to come.

38. The Lantern Men by Elly Griffiths

#12 Ruth Galloway

listened on Audible

2020
373 pgs.
Adult Mystery
Finished 5/27/2023
Goodreads rating: 4.20
My rating: 3.75

Setting: Contemporary Norfolk, England

My comments: It's been two years, and Ruth and Kate - now nine - live with Frank in Cambridge where both Ruth and Frank teach.  The mystery for this episode, back in Norfolk, is a bit convoluted with a large group of ex-hippie-type people who hang around together totally supporting each other and the man who is arrested for the murder of two women.  At the end of this one Ruth has said no to Frank's marriage proposal and decides to move back to her much-loved cottage in Norfolk.  There will be an opening for the head of archaeology at her previous university, and she and Nelson have gotten closer and closer...so the next book is going to definitely take us in a more positive direction in that respect, I think.  Pretty decent mystery, but a little dragged out.

Goodreads synopsis:  Forensic archaeologist Ruth Galloway changed her life—until a convicted killer tells her that four of his victims were never found, drawing her back to the place she left behind.

5. Hide by Tracy Clark

#1 Det. Harriet (Harry) Foster

listened on Audible (through Kindle Unlimited)

2023
377 pgs.
Adult Mystery/Police Procedural
Finished 1/12/2023
Goodreads rating: 4.20
My rating: 3
Setting: Contemporary Chicago

My comments: Couldn't wait to read a 2023 published novel and this one looked good.  Didn't work for me, though.  The narrator did the protagonist voice okay, but all the other voices were just horrible.  The story was shown through different viewpoints, so you immediately knew what was going to happen, there weren't many secrets at all.  I did like the main protagonist, Harry.  This is the first in the series, wil I try the next?  Perhaps.

Goodreads synopsis:  From acclaimed author Tracy Clark comes a page-turning mystery featuring hard-boiled Chicago detective Harriet Foster, who’s on the hunt for a serial killer with a deadly affinity for redheads.

When a young red-haired woman is found brutally murdered in downtown Chicago, one detail stands out: the red lipstick encircling her wrists and ankles.

Detective Harriet Foster is on the case, even though she’s still grieving the sudden death of her partner. As a Black woman in a male-dominated department, Foster anticipates a rocky road ahead acclimating to a new team—and building trust with her new partner isn’t coming easily.

After another victim turns up with the same lipstick markings, Foster suspects she’s looking for a serial killer. Through a tip from a psychiatrist, Foster learns about Bodie Morgan: a troubled man with a twisted past and a penchant for pretty young redheads with the bluest eyes. As Foster wades into Morgan’s sinister history, the killer continues their gruesome assault on Chicago’s streets.

In her desperate race to catch the murderer before they strike again, Foster will have to confront the darkest of secrets—including her own.

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.

21. The Trapped Girl by Robert Dugoni

#4 Tracy Crosswhite

listened on Audible

2017
424 pgs.
Adult murder mystery, police procedural
Finished 3/14/2022
Goodreads rating: 4.38
My rating: 4.5
Setting:  Contemporary Seattle & other parts of Washington state

My comments: A woman's body is found in a crab pot in Puget Sound, off Seattle, and has jurisdiction flip flopping back and forth, with Tracy never fully giving up looking for answers...   An excellently plotted mystery that keeps you guessing and figuring things out along with Tracy.  Dugoni is great with creating his characters, setting, and plot....liked this one a whole lot.  (Tracy ends up getting married to Dan at the very end so it's going to be interesting to see how that changes things.)

Goodreads synopsis:   When a woman’s body is discovered submerged in a crab pot in the chilly waters of Puget Sound, Detective Tracy Crosswhite finds herself with a tough case to untangle. Before they can identify the killer, Tracy and her colleagues on the Seattle PD’s Violent Crimes Section must figure out who the victim is. Her autopsy, however, reveals she may have gone to great lengths to conceal her identity. So who was she running from?

After evidence surfaces that their Jane Doe may be a woman who suspiciously disappeared months earlier, Tracy is once again haunted by the memory of her sister’s unsolved murder. Dredging up details from the woman’s past leads to conflicting clues that only seem to muddy the investigation. As Tracy begins to uncover a twisted tale of brutal betrayal and desperate greed, she’ll find herself risking everything to confront a killer who won’t go down without a deadly fight. Once again, New York Times bestselling author Robert Dugoni delivers a taut, riveting thriller in the fourth installment of his acclaimed Tracy Crosswhite series.

5. Cyber Count by S. L Beaumont

#1 or 2 Kat Munro (Don't need to read#1 if there is one before this...)

read on Kindle

2021
330 pgs.
Adult Police Procedural/Mystery
Finished 1/22/22
Goodreads rating: 4.30
My rating: 3
Setting: Contemporary London

My comments: This is all about cyber crime and crypto coin.  There are two major crimes being investigated by Kat and her cop sorta-boyfriend, Adam.  There are some really sleazy characters and it's written very simply (yet with lots of cyber crime info that I didn't care enough about, so it went in and out of my head).  Run of the mill.

Goodreads synopsis:  Has cyber-crime escalated to murder?

Forensic accountant Kat Munro puts her traumatic past behind her and begins dating journalist Connor O’Malley, whose investigations into online crime attract the wrong kind of attention. When a colleague’s teenage son goes missing, and his friend’s body is discovered, Kat finds herself working with DS Adam Jackson again.

The murder enquiry leads Adam to an exclusive London school where allegations of drugs, gaming fraud and child pornography abound. As he gets deeper into the investigation, Adam is forced to face issues in his private life while suppressing his feelings for Kat.

The faceless hackers become desperate, and Connor is found drugged with his research missing. Can Kat and Adam put the past behind them to solve a series of seemingly unrelated incidents before someone else becomes the victim of an elusive cyber-crime network?

111. The Dark Hours - Michael Connelly

#4 Renee Ballard/#23 Harry Bosch

listened on Audible

2021
400 pgs.
Adult Murder Mystery/Police Procedural
Finished 12/10/2021
Goodreads rating: 4.51
My rating: 5
Setting: Contemporary LA

My comments: Two mysteries keep Renee Ballard busy with the help of Harry Bosch.  Both are super intuitive and puzzle solvers.  One of the cases is about a bad cop, now retired, who is a hitman of sorts; and the other is about two guys who are serial rapists.  Renee even gets a teeny tiny bit of a love interest in this one, and an apartment!  It was so excellent!

Goodreads synopsis:   Has a killer lain dormant for years only to strike again on New Year’s Eve? LAPD Detective Renée Ballard and Harry Bosch team up to find justice for an innocent victim in the new thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling author Michael Connelly

There's chaos in Hollywood on New Year's Eve. Working her graveyard shift, LAPD Detective Renée Ballard seeks shelter at the end of the countdown to wait out the traditional rain of lead as hundreds of revelers shoot their guns into the air. As reports start to roll in of shattered windshields and other damage, Ballard is called to a scene where a hardworking auto shop owner has been fatally hit by a bullet in the middle of a crowded street party.

It doesn't take long for Ballard to determine that the deadly bullet could not have fallen from the sky. Ballard’s investigation leads her to look into another unsolved murder—a case at one time worked by Detective Harry Bosch.

Ballard and Bosch team up once again to find out where the old and new cases intersect. All the while they must look over their shoulders. The killer who has stayed undetected for so long knows they are coming after him

51. Sleep Tight by Anne Frasier

read on Kindle 

2003
400 pgs.
Adult Mystery
Finished 5/20/2021
Goodreads rating: 4.10 - 4486 ratings
My rating: 4.5
Setting:  Contemporary Minneapolis

First line/s: "He hovered over the unmoving girl, deftly drawing a thick black line on her eyelid, curving it up at the corner."

My comments: A mesmerizing mystery that I tried to read here and there whenever I could.  Giving glimpses into the minds of several of the characters, it was interesting to be able to put pieces together so that although you knew what was happening by whom, you were there for the ride.  Anne Frasier is quickly become one of my favorite mystery writers.

Goodreads synopsis:  WAKE UP, LITTLE DARLING. DO YOU LIKE WHAT YOU SEE?

He's looking for the perfect woman. Someone who won't disappoint him, like so many have before. Someone who'll love him ... someone who won't have to die for her mistakes.
          GIVE UP, LITTLE DARLING....
FBI agent Mary Cantrell has been called to Minneapolis to hunt down a killer. Her reluctant return home is shaking her to the core, reviving dreadful memories. Years ago, her best friend was murdered. Now the man convicted of the crime, Gavin Hitchcock, is free--and Mary's own sister, Gillian, a local cop, has befriended him.
          NO ONE CAN HEAR YOU SCREAM BUT ME.
As each clue to the new killings leads them closer to Hitchcock, Mary and Gillian put their differences aside and set themselves up as the perfect target--and the perfect trap. Unless Mary's own past has blinded her to an unimaginable truth ... and will plunge them into a waking nightmare....

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...

6. Black Rock Bay by Brianna Labuskes

listened on Audible - also have Kindle
narrated by Sarah Naughton
Unabridged audio (11:18)
2019
364 pgs.
Contemporary Mystery
Finished 1/30/21
Goodreads rating: 4.03 - 1736 ratings
My rating: 3
Setting: St. Lucy's, Maine - an island off the coast of Rockland, winter

First line/s: "Then.  The whimper was a quiet thing, broken and almost lost to the wind battering the outside of the lighthouse."

What I posted on Goodreads:  Chose because of the Maine setting.  The mystery was okay.  Characterization only so-so.

My comments: Always drawn to novels that take place in Maine, this enticed me because it was also a murder mystery.  I think it could've been a good one, but there were so many different scenarios offered by the two cops that it bacame confusing.  And repetitive, which seems to be something that really bugs me.  I never felt I knew any of the characters at all so I wasn't even sure of motivations.  I did get a sense of Asher, but not of Cash, definitely not of Mia's mother, an what I did get was mostly told and not show.  Great concept for a book but didn't ssem to fulfill its vas opportunities.

Goodreads synopsis:  A detective returns to her haunted past, with deadly consequences, in an icy novel of psychological suspense by the Washington Post and Amazon Charts bestselling author of Girls of Glass.      
      Detective Mia Hart never planned to return home. One terrifying summer night, Mia lost two of her closest friends to suicide. Scarred and broken, she fled St. Lucy’s, a small island off the coast of Maine.
Now fifteen years later, when the body of a journalist is fished out of the bay near St. Lucy’s cliffs, Mia is forced to help with the case—and face all she’s been running from. As she approaches the island, the wintery winds of Black Rock Bay usher Mia home again.
          When Mia digs into the reporter’s death, she finds he left behind a written clue: It wasn't suicide. Mia soon discovers it’s her own tragic past he was referring to. Now, as she tries to untangle a web of lies, Mia realizes that solving this case means becoming the next pawn in someone’s blood-chilling game of truth or die.

114. The Fifth to Die by J. K. Barker

#2 MLK Murders
listened on Audible
narrated by Eduardo Ballerini and Graham Winton
Unabridged audio (15:07)
2018
416 pgs.
Adult Murder Mystery/Police Procedural
Finished 8/6/2020
Goodreads rating:  432 - 5744 ratings
My rating:  5
Setting:  Contemporary Chicago, with forays to New Orleans and Sourth Carolina

First line/s:  "Darkness.  It swirled around him deep and thick, eating the light and leaving nothing behind but an inky void."

What I posted on GoodReads:  Flipping back and forth between many pov's, the interesting, though gritty, mystery continues.

My comments:  Talk about ending on a cliffhanger!  I'm so glad I have the next book, the final book, in the trilogy ready and waiting.   Flipping back and forth between three Chicago cops, different girls who have been abducted, an FBI agent, and the diary of Bishop, the story comes at you from all angles.  Anson Bishop, an incredibly smart serial murderer - and a particularly gruesome one at that - is still at it, this time having an accomplice.

Goodreads synopsis:  In the thrilling sequel to The Fourth Monkey, a new serial killer stalks the streets of Chicago, while Detective Porter delves deeper into the dark past of the Four Monkey Killer.
          Detective Porter and the team have been pulled from the hunt for Anson Bishop, the Four Monkey Killer, by the feds. When the body of a young girl is found beneath the frozen waters of Jackson Park Lagoon, she is quickly identified as Ella Reynolds, missing three weeks. But how did she get there? The lagoon froze months earlier. More baffling? She’s found wearing the clothes of another girl, missing less than two days. While the detectives of Chicago Metro try to make sense of the quickly developing case, Porter secretly continues his pursuit of 4MK, knowing the best way to find Bishop is to track down his mother. When the captain finds out about Porter’s activities, he’s suspended, leaving his partners Clair and Nash to continue the search for the new killer alone.
          Obsessed with catching Bishop, Porter follows a single grainy photograph from Chicago to the streets of New Orleans and stumbles into a world darker than he could have possibly imagined, where he quickly realizes that the only place more frightening than the mind of a serial killer is the mind of the mother from which he came.

95. One Last Lie by Paul Doiron

#11 Mike Bowditch, Maine Game Warden

listened on Audible
narrated by Henry Leyva
Unabridged audio (9:33) 
2020 Minotaur Books
310 pgs.
Adult Murder Mystery/Police Procedural
Finished 7/19/2020
Goodreads rating: 4.18 - 1139 ratings
My rating: 3.5
Setting: Fort Kent area, Maine

First line/s: "Before I left for Florida my old friend and mentor Charley Stevens gave me a puzzling piece of advice." 

My comments: Charley Stevens has disappeared, on his own, and Mike Bowditch is out hunting for him, following the breadcrumbs that he has left as a trail.  The story is a bit convoluted and involves a lot of people, and it seems to get a little bit disjointed at times.  Perhaps because it didn't hold my interest as much as the Bowditch stories usually do.  And I think he's going to get back with Stacy Stevens, I don't know what the attractions is with her, but his current girlfriend, Danny, doesn't want kids and he really does so that's probably the direction that Doiron want to take him.  He's 31 now, and ready to settle down, I think.  Well, it'll be another year before we discover the next episode.  I wish I'd liked this one a little bit better than I did.

Goodreads synopsis:  A sudden disappearance reveals a startling connection to a 15-year-old cold case in the new thriller from bestselling Edgar Award finalist Paul Doiron.

          “Never trust a man without secrets.” These are the last words retired game warden Charley Stevens speaks to his surrogate son, Warden Investigator Mike Bowditch, before the old man vanishes without explanation into a thousand miles of forest along the Canadian border. Mike suspects his friend’s sudden disappearance has to do with an antique badge found at a flea market — a badge that belonged to a warden who was presumed dead fifteen years ago but whose body was never recovered. On a mission to find Charley before he meets a similarly dark fate, Mike must reopen a cold case that powerful people, including his fellow wardens — one of whom might be a killer — will do anything to keep closed.