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.

82. The Waiting by Michael Connelly

Ballard & Bosch #6

listened on Audible (purchased)

407 pgs.

2024
Adult Mystery
Finished 12/8/2024
Goodreads rating: 4.47
My rating: 5
Setting: LA and vicinity, contemporary

My comments: The Cold Case Unit in LA, headed by Renee Ballard - Connelly spent the 6th in the series about this LA police detective working on three major cases.  They're all intricate and edge-of-your-seat fascinating.  Renee and Harry have become very close friends, having similar thoughts, feeling, and reactions to many things.  What was wonderfully great for me sas that Maddie Bosch is part of this book! (Why is her relationship with her father so strained? and almost secretive?)  This was a really good one!

Goodreads synopsis:  LAPD Detective Renée Ballard tracks a terrifying serial rapist whose trail has gone cold, with the help of the newest volunteer to the Open-Unsolved Unit: Patrol Officer Maddie Bosch, Harry’s daughter.

Renée Ballard and the LAPD’s Open-Unsolved Unit get a hot shot DNA connection between a recently arrested man and a serial rapist and murderer who went quiet twenty years ago. The arrested man is only twenty-three, so the genetic link must be familial. It is his father who was the Pillowcase Rapist, responsible for a five-year reign of terror in the city of angels. But when Ballard and her team move in on their suspect, they encounter a baffling web of secrets and legal hurdles.

Meanwhile, Ballard’s badge, gun, and ID are stolen—a theft she can’t report without giving her enemies in the department the ammunition they need to end her career as a detective. She works the burglary alone, but her solo mission leads her into greater danger than she anticipates. She has no choice but to go outside the department for help, and that leads her to the door of Harry Bosch.

Finally, Ballard takes on a new volunteer to the cold case unit. Bosch’s daughter Maddie wants to supplement her work as a patrol officer on the night beat by investigating cases with Ballard. But Renée soon learns that Maddie has an ulterior motive for getting access to the city’s library of lost souls.

63. A Flicker in the Dark by Stacy Willingham

listened on Libby

357 pgs.

2022
Genre/Level
Finished 7/14/24
Goodreads rating: 3.99
My rating:  3
Setting: Contemporary Louisiana

My comments: For me, I think, it's hard to enjoy a story when you don't like or understand the protagonist.  To do really brave things without consequences for the final outcome, then refuse to do simple things that would be quite easy ... well, I don't get it.  Not too many surprises although it seemed to take forever for the final eents that pull the entire story together.  It was aggravating for me to hear Chloe go on and on and on and around and around in circles.  What a twit.  

Goodreads synopsis:  

Goodreads Choice Award

Nominee for Best Mystery & Thriller (2022), Nominee for Best Debut Novel (2022)

When Chloe Davis was twelve, six teenage girls went missing in her small Louisiana town. By the end of the summer, Chloe’s father had been arrested as a serial killer and promptly put in prison. Chloe and the rest of her family were left to grapple with the truth and try to move forward while dealing with the aftermath.

Now 20 years later, Chloe is a psychologist in private practice in Baton Rouge and getting ready for her wedding. She finally has a fragile grasp on the happiness she’s worked so hard to get. Sometimes, though, she feels as out of control of her own life as the troubled teens who are her patients. And then a local teenage girl goes missing, and then another, and that terrifying summer comes crashing back. Is she paranoid, and seeing parallels that aren't really there, or for the second time in her life, is she about to unmask a killer?

In a debut novel that has already been optioned for a limited series by actress Emma Stone and sold to a dozen countries around the world, Stacy Willingham has created an unforgettable character in a spellbinding thriller that will appeal equally to fans of Gillian Flynn and Karin Slaughter.

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.

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...

145. Troubled Blood by Robert Galbraith

#5 Cormoran Strike

Listened on Libby (borrowed from one of my libraries)
narrated by Robert Glenister
Unabridged audio (31:52)
2020
944 pgs.
Adult murder mystery
Finished 12/2/2020
Goodreads rating: 4..335 - 31,606 ratings (lots of 1 ratings from people who haven't even read the book, but from people objecting about J. K. Rowling's supposed transphobia.)
My rating: 4
Setting: Contemporary London and Cornwall

First line/s: " 'You're a Cornishman, born and bred,' said Dave Polworth irritably."

My comments (also posted on GoodReads):  Three "negatives" and many positives to ponder as I finish this  book.  Yes, it was too long.  Way too long.  There were too many people to remember, although Galbraith did a decent job of reminding the reader each time one was mentioned.  And thirdly, I didn't like all the chapter beginnings (quotes from Spenser's Faerie Queene).  Other than that, it was spot on....great mystery, excellent plot (just too lengthy), great characters, and a really perfect ending, both for the professional pair of Strike & Robin, and for their personal side as well.  Enough going on in their personal lives to keep that part of the story quite interesting. 

Goodreads synopsis:  Private Detective Cormoran Strike is visiting his family in Cornwall when he is approached by a woman asking for help finding her mother, Margot Bamborough — who went missing in mysterious circumstances in 1974.

           Strike has never tackled a cold case before, let alone one forty years old. But despite the slim chance of success, he is intrigued and takes it on; adding to the long list of cases that he and his partner in the agency, Robin Ellacott, are currently working on. And Robin herself is also juggling a messy divorce and unwanted male attention, as well as battling her own feelings about Strike.
           As Strike and Robin investigate Margot's disappearance, they come up against a fiendishly complex case with leads that include tarot cards, a psychopathic serial killer and witnesses who cannot all be trusted. And they learn that even cases decades old can prove to be deadly .

107. Find Me by Ann Frasier

#1 Inland Empire

listened on Audible
narrated by Erin Bennett

Unabridged audio (9:16)
2020
282 pgs.
Genre/Level
Finished 7/21/2020
Goodreads rating: 4.14 - 21,189 ratings
My rating: 4.5
Setting: Palm Springs/Joshua Tree/29 Palms/High  Desert of southern California

First line/s:  "It was dark by the time Cathy Baker took off along the Southern California trail just outside the town of Redlands."

My comments: Anne Frasier is becoming one of my favorite authors in the mystery/murder mystery genre.  Always plenty to anticipate, never a dull moment; believable characters, and lots of twists and turns.  Psychopaths and sociopaths -- imagine being born into a family with these characteristices...and imagine living your whole life knowing that, as a kid, your much-adored father uses you as bait to reel in innocent young women to their deaths.  How do you live with that?  Anne Frasier takes you into the minds of her characters to allow you to hear their thoughts and feel their pain.  Couldn't put it down  Looks like there might be more in the series, too, yippee!

Goodreads synopsis:   A bone-chilling family history is unearthed in a heart-stopping thriller by New York Times bestselling author Anne Frasier.

          Convicted serial killer Benjamin Fisher has finally offered to lead San Bernardino detective Daniel Ellis to the isolated graves of his victims. One catch: he’ll only do it if FBI profiler Reni Fisher, his estranged daughter, accompanies them. As hard as it is to exhume her traumatic childhood, Reni can’t say no. She still feels complicit in her father’s crimes.

          Perfect to play a lost little girl, Reni was the bait to lure unsuspecting women to their deaths. It’s time for closure. For her. For the families. And for Daniel. He shares Reni’s obsession with the past. Ever since he was a boy, he’s been convinced that his mother was one of Fisher’s victims.

A five-hundred-mile road trip lies ahead. Thirty years of bad memories are flooding back. A master manipulator has gained their trust. For Reni and Daniel, this isn’t the end of a nightmare. It’s only the beginning

20. Nine Elms by Robert Bryndza

#1 Kate Marshall
read on my iPhone (Kindle)
2019 Thomas & Mercer
392 pgs.
Adult murder mystery series
Finished 1/28/2020
Goodreads rating: 4.15 - 5701 ratings
My rating:  3.5
Setting: Contemporary England

First line/s:  "Detective Constable Kate Marshall was on the train home when her phone rang."

My comments:  This was an intricately told from two points of view - that of the good guy and that of the bad guy.  And this was a VERY bad guy, with clever accomplices and a particularly weird relationship with his mother.  Kate had been a cop when she first met Peter, another copy, and had even had a one-night stand with him before she disovered he was a notorious serial killer.  Now incarcerated in a hospital for the mentally and possibly insane, he, his mother, and a new wannabe create a plot to not only spring him from this high-security prison, but get revenge upon Kate.  The back-and-forth is interesting, but because I was reading it in spits and spurts, it did seem to drag a little.  If I'd read it in one long swoop or listened to it, it would've probably not seemed so draggy.  It was a really good story, twisted, dark, and particularly grizzly.  It was also the first in the series.  I do think that I will read the second.

Goodreads synopsis:  From the breakthrough international bestselling author of The Girl in the Ice, a breathtaking, page-turning novel about a disgraced female detective’s fight for redemption. And survival…
          Kate Marshall was a promising young police detective when she caught the notorious Nine Elms serial killer. But her greatest victory suddenly turned into a nightmare. Traumatized, betrayed, and publicly vilified for the shocking circumstances surrounding the cannibal murder case, Kate could only watch as her career ended in scandal.
          Fifteen years after those catastrophic events, Kate is still haunted by the unquiet ghosts of her troubled past. Now a lecturer at a small coastal English university, she finally has a chance to face them. A copycat killer has taken up the Nine Elms mantle, continuing the ghastly work of his idol.
          Enlisting her brilliant research assistant, Tristan Harper, Kate draws on her prodigious and long-neglected skills as an investigator to catch a new monster. Success promises redemption, but there’s much more on the line: Kate was the original killer’s intended fifth victim…and his successor means to finish the job.

19. Dark Pattern by Andrew Mayne

#4 Dr. Theo Cray/The Naturalist
listened to Audible
narrated by Will Damron
2019 Thomas & Mercer
316 pgs.
Adult Mystery/Serial Killer
Finished 1/27/2020
Goodreads rating: 4.21 - 2317 ratings
My rating: 4.5
Setting: Contemporay Texas, St. Lucia, and other points on the map....

First line/s: "Nora watched the doorway.  This was when the Night Lady usually stopped at her room and stared inside."

My comments:  Serial killer hunter extraordinaire!  Whenever I go into one of the Theo Cray books now, I know I have to suspend reality checks.  I'm sure most of - or at least many -  of Cray's technological "inventions" are still science-fiction, but they are what makes these mysteries so different.  You know that he's going to get himself into some stupid cray situations and you roll your eyes at most of his antics, but that's also what makes these books so much fun, as well as his definite Asperger's/Autistic tendencies and his cognition of them.  It also cracks me up how much he irritates people.  A huge part of the plot comes off as comic relief for me, I wonder if it affects others in the same way?  To write this combination of grizzly deaths and this extraordinary character is quite genius.  A real breakdown should be coming for this man!  Or has he had it?  ti's hard to tell from the ending of this book, which did seem a little rushed compared to the rest of it.

Goodreads synopsis:  Dr. Theo Cray is on the hunt for a killer nurse, and redemption, in a mind-bending psychological thriller by the Wall Street Journal bestselling author of The Naturalist.
          Dr. Theo Cray has a legendary mathematical knack for catching serial killers. Until his exposure to a mind-altering pathogen knocks him off his game. It has upended an investigation, destroyed his reputation, and left him to question his own sanity. One person still trusts him to finish the job. His former professor Amanda Paulson is helping point Cray down a logical path to his prey: a nomadic health-care worker whose murder spree stretches back decades and whose victims number in the hundreds.
          Never more desperate to save innocent lives, and to save himself, Cray follows each new lead around the world. But with his own grip on reality slipping away, Cray knows that to follow the pattern of an elusive killer, he must also confront his own dark side. In those dangerous shadows, he can find what he’s hunting. For Cray, venturing into a world without reason is going to be the most frightening journey of his life.

10. Jar of Hearts by Jennifer Hillier

Listened to audio, borrowed from library
Narrated  by January LaVoy (super easy to listen to, good with voices)
Unabridged audio (10:23)
2018 Minotaur Books
311 pgs.
Adult Mystery Thriller
Finished 1/16/2020
Goodreads rating: 4.06 - 11,241 ratings
My rating: 4.5
Setting: Contemporary Seattle, Washington, with flashbacks 15 and 20 years.

First line/s:  "The trial has barely made a dent in the national news."

My comments:  A hugely mesmerizing story, told in snippets back-and-forth fifteen years apart, the story solwly peels back the layers of what happened one fateful night.  This examines all sorts of love - loe of friends, love of lovers, and love of parents and their children.  Once I started reading/listening I couldn't stop.  Giving clues along the way - some of the pretty blatant, actually - I totally enjoyed this piece of storytelling, no matter how upsetting it became.  I don't think I should have enjoyed it as much as I did!

Goodreads synopsis:  This is the story of three best friends: one who was murdered, one who went to prison, and one who's been searching for the truth all these years . . .
          When she was sixteen years old, Angela Wong—one of the most popular girls in school—disappeared without a trace. Nobody ever suspected that her best friend, Georgina Shaw, now an executive and rising star at her Seattle pharmaceutical company, was involved in any way. Certainly not Kaiser Brody, who was close with both girls back in high school.
          But fourteen years later, Angela Wong's remains are discovered in the woods near Geo's childhood home. And Kaiser—now a detective with Seattle PD—finally learns the truth: Angela was a victim of Calvin James. The same Calvin James who murdered at least three other women.
          To the authorities, Calvin is a serial killer. But to Geo, he's something else entirely. Back in high school, Calvin was Geo's first love. Turbulent and often volatile, their relationship bordered on obsession from the moment they met right up until the night Angela was killed.
          For fourteen years, Geo knew what happened to Angela and told no one. For fourteen years, she carried the secret of Angela's death until Geo was arrested and sent to prison.
          While everyone thinks they finally know the truth, there are dark secrets buried deep. And what happened that fateful night is more complex and more chilling than anyone really knows. Now the obsessive past catches up with the deadly present when new bodies begin to turn up, killed in the exact same manner as Angela Wong.
          How far will someone go to bury her secrets and hide her grief? How long can you get away with a lie? How long can you live with it?

6. Truth and Lies by Caroline Mitchell

listened to eAudio on Audible
narrated  by Elizabeth Knowelden
Unabridged audio (10:22)
2018 Thomas & Mercer
344 pgs.
Adult Murder Mystery/Serial Killer
Finished 1/11/2020
Goodreads rating: 4.27 - 7121 ratings
My rating: 3.5/4
Setting: contemporary Great Britain

First line/s:  "1986:  It was the scratching noise that brought Poppy down to the place where she wasn't allowed to go."

My comments:  Throughout the reading of this entire book I had a jittery, nervous, uncomfortable feeling.  I guess I was just incredibly pput off the the loathsomeness of Lillian Grimes.  And it looks like her presence will be front and center in future books in the series, so I'm reluctant to continue.  Creep, disconcerting feeling.  I can't say that the protagonist is one of my favorites, either.  The story twists and turns as it twines a current day kidnapping with the scandalous serial murders of the Grimes family years previously.  The kicker is that the smart, dedicated copy, Amy Winters, is the youngest daughter of these killers, a fact that she doesn't remember and hasn't been told...until the beginning of this book, when she receives a letter from her birth mother from prison.  A wild ride.

Goodreads synopsis:  Meet Amy Winter: Detective Inspector, daughter of a serial killer.
          DI Amy Winter is hoping to follow in the footsteps of her highly respected police officer father. But when a letter arrives from the prison cell of Lillian Grimes, one half of a notorious husband-and-wife serial-killer team, it contains a revelation that will tear her life apart.
          Responsible for a string of heinous killings decades ago, Lillian is pure evil. A psychopathic murderer. And Amy’s biological mother. Now, she is ready to reveal the location of three of her victims—but only if Amy plays along with her twisted game.
           While her fellow detectives frantically search for a young girl taken from her mother’s doorstep, Amy must confront her own dark past. Haunted by blurred memories of a sister who sacrificed herself to save her, Amy faces a race against time to uncover the missing bodies.
          But what if, from behind bars, Grimes has been pulling the strings even tighter than Amy thought? And can she overcome her demons to prevent another murder?

2. Once Gone by by Blake Pierce

#1 Riley Paige, FBI
listened on Audible (Chirp)
narrated  by Elaine Wise (lovely BRITISH accent....)
Unabridged audio (7:34)
2015
304 pgs.
Adult murder mystery/police procedural
Finished 1/6/2020
Goodreads rating:  3.93 - 18,599 ratings
My rating: 2
Setting: contemporary Virginia and surrounding states

First line/s:  from Prologue:  "A new spasm of pain jolted Reba's head upright."
from Chapter 1:  "At least the stench hadn't kicked in, Special Agent Bill Jeffries thought."

My comments:  This book is about Riley Paige, a female FBI agent working out of Langley in Virginia and read by a woman with a beautifully lilting British accent.  Talk about disconcerting!  I cannot imagine what the audio company was thinking.  I had to keep adjusting to the setting, every so often thinking that it was all based in Great Britain.  And then there was Riley herself.  A mom.  A brilliant problem solver.  An extremely smart agent.  She is suffering from PTSD, which is perfectly and totally understandable.  The depression, the drinking, the debilitating thoughts she had.  What I didn't understand was her recklessness and carelessness, and the made me dislike her, and eye-rolling dislike.  Her partner, Bill, seems pretty much like a dolt, a yes-man to her decisions and a constant "don't go alone" to her unheeding ear seem to be pretty much the sum of his abilities.  Will I read more?  There are a lot more in the series.  Perhaps.....
     Plus, what a crappy cover!

Goodreads synopsis:  Women are turning up dead in the rural outskirts of Virginia, killed in grotesque ways, and when the FBI is called in, they are stumped. A serial killer is out there, his frequency increasing, and they know there is only one agent good enough to crack this case: Special Agent Riley Paige.
          Riley is on paid leave herself, recovering from her encounter with her last serial killer, and, fragile as she is, the FBI is reluctant to tap her brilliant mind. Yet Riley, needing to battle her own demons, comes on board, and her hunt leads her through the disturbing subculture of doll collectors, into the homes of broken families, and into the darkest canals of the killer’s mind. As Riley peels back the layers, she realizes she is up against a killer more twisted than she could have imagined. In a frantic race against time, she finds herself pushed to her limit, her job on the line, her own family in danger, and her fragile psyche collapsing.
          Yet once Riley Paige takes on a case, she will not quit. It obsesses her, leading her to the darkest corners of her own mind, blurring the lines between hunter and hunted. After a series of unexpected twists, her instincts lead her to a shocking climax that even Riley could not have imagined.
          A dark psychological thriller with heart-pounding suspense, ONCE GONE marks the debut of a riveting new series—and a beloved new character—that will leave you turning pages late into the night.

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?

20. Mourning Gloria by Andrew Downs

A Leah Hudson Thriller
read on my iPhone
2015, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
308 pgs.
Adult Mystery/FBI
Finished 4-6-17
Goodreads rating: 4.21 - 382 ratings
My rating: 3
Setting: Late 1980s California

First line/s:  "The Good Samaritan was famished...practically starving.  His hunger had been building for weeks, fueled by an insatiable desire, which could only be fulfilled by one thing...the kill."

My comments:       Something was just a little bit of with this book, but I guess I'm going to have to mull a bit to come up with what it might be.  I think it had to do with the characters.  The mystery was pretty decent, the setting - California from LA to San Francisco and in between - is a bit known to me and it worked.
     I used to tell my students when they were learning to write to "show me, don't tell me."  Well, I feel like the characters in Mourning Gloria were told about, not shown.  Either that or the parts about them that were showing didn't totally agree with what the author was telling.  Or something.  Can't quite put my finger on it. Definitely something to do with characterization.  As usual, I hate to say anything negative about an author's hard work, but I'll add more if I figure it out.

Goodreads synopsis:  From The Author Of The Alex Hollick Series Comes A Dark Heart-Pounding Thriller With Brilliant Plotting, Continuous Suspense and a Jaw Dropping Finale! 
          When a murder suspect escapes indictment on a technicality, Agent Leah Hudson is forced to shift her focus to a new task, a cold case. Five years after Gloria Stone disappears, Hudson must piece together the final days of her life, but Gloria was no ordinary girl. Shortly after surviving a brutal gang rape on her twenty-first birthday, the affluent wine heiress vanished, her car abandoned in a supermarket parking lot. 
With the help of her onetime mentor, Hudson retraces the steps of an old investigation, determined to succeed where all others have failed. Making her way through a slew of once discounted suspects, she edges closer to a horrifying truth - Gloria wasn’t alone…there are other victims and a misogynistic serial killer continues to lurk in the shadows of the Central Valley, threatening the lives of young women who fit his sick and twisted M.O. 
          Mourning Gloria brings together the elements of a thriller and a murder-mystery into one bone-chilling tale that examines the darkest depths of human nature. 

68. The Body Reader by Anne Frasier

read on my iPhone/Book/listened to audio CD/Audible...
2016, Thomas & Mercer
289 pgs.
adult murder mystery
Finished 12-1-16
Goodreads rating:  4.18
My rating: 4.5

First line/s:  "One day she stopped screaming."

My comments:  First of all, I can't (and don't want to) imagine what it would be like to be held captive in a basement "cell" for three years.  In the best of circumstances this would be horrendous, but Jude Fontaine was held under horrid circumstances.  So when she is able to escape and re-enter the real world, it is hard to comprehend how she would or could survive.  The foremost feeling I have after reading this book is that Anne Frasier is a wonderful, creative writer.  It's a really believable story that could so easily be the opposite.  Impressed.

Goodreads synopsis:  For three years, Detective Jude Fontaine was kept from the outside world. Held in an underground cell, her only contact was with her sadistic captor, and reading his face was her entire existence. Learning his every line, every movement, and every flicker of thought is what kept her alive.
     After her experience with isolation and torture, she is left with a fierce desire for justice—and a heightened ability to interpret the body language of both the living and the dead. Despite colleagues’ doubts about her mental state, she resumes her role at Homicide. Her new partner, Detective Uriah Ashby, doesn’t trust her sanity, and he has a story of his own he’d rather keep hidden. But a killer is on the loose, murdering young women, so the detectives have no choice: they must work together to catch the madman before he strikes again. And no one knows madmen like Jude Fontaine.

66. Once Shadows Fall by Robert Daniels

Sturgis & Kale #1
read on my Kindle AND listened on Audible
2015, Crooked Lane Books
352 pgs.
Adult Mystery
Finished  11/23/16
Goodreads rating:  4.03 - 186 ratings
My rating: 4
Setting:  Contemporary Atlanta, GA

First line/s:   "Luck:  hard to plan for it, hard to predict when it might show up."

My comments:  A new, female homicide detective gets handed a case that looks like a copycat -  a copycat because the deranged killer of what look like the same type of serial murders is locked away in a psychiatric hospital.   As more similar murders appear, she teams up with a brilliant - though reluctant - ex-FBI agent who is now a college professor.  Of course rapport between them grows as we slowly learn his story, which is deeply imbedded in the original serial killer's story.  Oh, these dark, twisted minds! This was a satisfying mystery, though quite easy to figure out early on if you've read a lot of murder mysteries.  I look forward to reading more in the series.

Goodreads synopsis:  After years of paying her dues on the force, Beth Sturgis has earned her place as a detective for the Robbery-Homicide division of the Atlanta PD. Now, she's heading up a major manhunt for a potential serial killer who’s working his way inward from the outskirts of the city. The copycat elements in the first crime scene lead Sturgis to retired FBI agent Jack Kale, who was responsible for apprehending and nearly killing the murderer known as the Scarecrow, the same Scarecrow who appears to be this new killer's terrible inspiration.
          A reclusive single father and university professor, Kale is trying to keep the demons at bay through therapy and avoidance. That is, until Sturgis shows up asking for his help. Against his better judgment, Kale is drawn into the most dangerous cat and mouse game of his life. Robert Daniels's Once Shadows Fall, is a gripping thriller in the bestselling tradition of Silence of the Lambs and is sure to become a crime fiction classic.

42. Heartstopper - Joy Fielding

listened to audio cd on the way to Maine (and during some of my cross-country jaunt)
2007 Atria Publishing
387 pgs.
Adult mystery
Finished 6/26/2015
Goodreads rating: 3.68
My rating: 3
Setting: Contemporary Florida - a small town in Alligator Alley

My comments:  There were many things to like about this book and a few things to passionately dislike.  So which one should I talk about?  There are three major points-of-view in this story:  a high school English teacher, the chief of police, and the writings/braggings of the antagonist.  The setting, a small town in alligator alley in Florida, worked well. I don't like coming across teachers in books that are not good role models to the profession.  I'm appalled at the things that Sandy Crosbie allows her student to get away with - particularly being hugely mean to each other.  She wants her cheating husband back (he's a worm) even though he flaunts his new floozy right in front of her.  I have no respect for her at all, except, perhaps, in some of her parenting.  And then we have the chief of police.  What a piece of work he is!  It all come together, though, and even though I had a pretty good idea who the antagonist was, the mystery kept me enthralled for much of my cross-country journey.

Goodreads synopsis:  From the "New York Times" and internationally bestselling author of "Mad River Road" comes a spine-tingling thriller about a picturesque Florida town -- and the killer determined to prey on its teenage girls.Welcome to Torrance, Florida. Population: 4,160. As Sheriff John Weber would attest, the deadliest predators to date in his tiny hamlet were the alligators lurking in the nearby swamps. But that was before someone abducted and murdered a runaway teenage girl...and before the disappearance of popular and pretty Liana Martin. The pattern is chilling to Sandy Crosbie, the town's new high school English teacher. With a marriage on the rocks, thanks to her husband's online affairs, and a beautiful teenage daughter to protect, Sandy wishes she'd never come to the seemingly quiet town with shocking depths of scandal, sex, and brutality roiling beneath its surface. And as Sheriff Weber digs up more questions than answers in a dead-end investigation, one truth emerges: the prettiest ones are being targeted, the heartstoppers. And this killer intends to give them their due....
     Alternating between the chilling journal entries of a cold-blooded murderer and the sizzling scandals of small-town life, "Heartstopper" is Joy Fielding's most exciting novel of suspense yet.

15. Let Me Go - Chelsea Cain

Archie Sheridan (& Gretchen Lowell) #6

Audio read by Christina Delaine

10 unabridged cds

2013 Macmillan Audio

358 pgs.

Adult Murder Mystery

Finished 3/9/2014

Goodreads Rating: 3.96

My Rating: 3/Liked it

TPPL

Contemporary Portland, Oregon

Goodreads has a page about this series here.

My comments:  3 is "liked it."  I did.  This installment included some flashbacks from Archie and Gretchen's initial liaisons - which helped me more fully understand Archie's fascination with her. However, I cannot understand his feelings for Susan.  At all.  Maybe it's the way the reader of this audio makes her sound - but to me she's immature, outspoken, selfish and....in many ways....stupid. These stories always fascinate me, and I'm hoping for more, but I'm glad I'm finished with the ones that are currently out so that I can take a little Archie Sheridan break.

Goodreads Review:   Detective Archie Sheridan is about to receive a birthday present from the last person he ever wants to see again: Gretchen Lowell
          The investigation into Jack Reynolds's drug enterprise is heating up and has Archie heading off to attend a masked Halloween party on Jack Reynolds's island, where Susan is a reluctant guest. But the next morning one of the guests is found murdered, and Archie quickly realizes that nothing is what it seems. Only one thing is clear: Gretchen is back, and she's been closer than anyone thinks. On Halloween Eve, with time running out, Archie will have to risk everything, and choose wisely whom to trust, if he and his loved ones are going to live through the night.

13. Kill You Twice - Chelsea Cain

Archie Sheridan/Gretchen Lowell #5

Audio read by Christina Delaine (really well, I might say....)

9 unabridged cds

2012 Macmillan Audio Books

326 pgs.

Adult Murder Mystery

Finished 2/27/2014

Goodreads Rating: 4.12

My Rating: 5 

TPPL

Setting: Contemporary Portland, Oregon

My comments:  I can't believe how much I like (I can't really say "enjoy") these ultra-grizzly stories.  But Chelsea Cain certainly does know how to spin a tale.  Good people...bad people....conflicted people....and people that are just plain nuts....are all represented here. This is a fascinating look into the human mind.

Goodreads Review:  Nothing makes Portland detective Archie Sheridan happier than knowing that Gretchen Lowell, the serial killer whose stunning beauty is belied by the gruesome murders she's committed, is locked away in a psych ward. Archie can finally heal from the near-fatal physical and emotional wounds she's inflicted on him and start moving on with his life.

          To this end, Archie throws himself into the latest case to come across his desk: A cyclist has discovered a corpse in Mount Tabor Park on the eastern side of Portland. The man was gagged, skinned, and found hanging by his wrists from a tree. It's the work of a killer bold and clever enough to torture his victim for hours on a sunny summer morning in a big public park and yet leave no trace.
          And then Archie gets a message he can't ignore. Gretchen claims to have inside knowledge about this grisly murder. Archie finally agrees to visit Gretchen, because he can't risk losing his only lead in the case. At least, that's what he tells himself . . . but the ties between Archie and Gretchen have always been stronger, deeper, and more complex than he's willing to admit, even to himself. What game is she playing this time? And even more frightening, what long-hidden secrets from Gretchen's past have been dredged up that someone would kill to protect?
          At once terrifying and magnetic, Beauty Killer's Gretchen Lowell returns with a vengeance in Kill You Twice, Chelsea Cain's latest razor-sharp psychological thriller.