Category: Mystery

Reckoning by Catherine Coulter

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Reckoning (FBI Thriller, #26)Barbara’s rating: 5 of 5 Stars
Series: FBI Thriller #26
Publication Date: 8/2/22
Period: Contemporary
Number of Pages: 432

As always, Catherine Coulter has delivered a stellar book. One might think that a series with 26 books would become a bit stale and repetitive, but that is NOT the case here. Each book is as fresh, engaging, and inventive as the first. These later books haven’t made use of Dillon’s sixth sense as much as the first ones did, but that isn’t an issue for me – after all, it allows them to solve the crimes by following the evidence. Although – sometimes – a bit of that intuition would be good in the suspenseful parts.

I listened to the audiobook version from my public library and I loved the way they did it. Harper Audio presented the book with narrators Saskia Maarleveld and Pete Simonelli, so we had a female narrator for the female voices and a male narrator for the male. Both narrators did an excellent job with the pacing of the narration and each character had a nicely unique voice.

If you are a fan of the series, you’ll remember Emma’s story – The Target, book #3 in the series. One of the things I love about this series is the continuity of the characters. They don’t all show up in every book, but they recur often enough you can keep up with them. Emma was kidnapped by a heinous pedophile when she was six years old, and now several years later, someone is again trying to kidnap her. Is it a family member of the pedophile who is coming after her as revenge for the death of the pedophile? Is it the man who actually paid the pedophile to kidnap Emma in the first place? Is it someone totally different?

Savich and Sherlock definitely don’t have an easy time solving this one – especially when the victims are very good friends of theirs. They manage to thwart more kidnapping attempts before the kidnappers decide to change targets. Catching the villains and rescuing the abductees becomes a near-death thing for all participants. Can Savich and Ramsey save everyone or will some of them die?

The other featured case features Agent Griffin Hammersmith as he pairs up with Kirra Mandarian, a commonwealth attorney in Porte Franklin, Virginia. When she was just twelve years old, Kirra barely escaped with her life on the night her parents were murdered. Now, after living with her uncle in Australia for years, she is back in Porte Franklin and she is determined to uncover the murderers of her parents.

Little does Kirra know how dangerous those murderers are or how far they can reach until the attempts on her life begin. Lucky for her all of those years in Australia taught her many survival skills – and she’s going to need every one of them to survive. Things are very close even with the ever-so-handsome agent Hammersmith looking out for her. Can Kirra and Hammersmith get the evidence they need to convict the murderers before those murderers get them?

I thoroughly enjoyed this intense, suspenseful read and I hope you will enjoy it as much as I did.

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Desperation In Death by J.D. Robb

On By BarbaraIn Barb's Reviews, Futuristic, Mystery, Part of a SeriesLeave a comment

Desperation in Death (In Death, #55)Barbara’s rating: 5 of 5 Stars
Series: In Death #55
Publication Date: 9/6/22
Period: Future New York – 2061
Number of Pages: 368

OMGoodness! This 55th addition to the series is just as fresh, thrilling, engrossing, and suspenseful as the first one. The characters are some of the most intriguing and interesting I’ve ever read and they grow personally and professionally with each new book. You also couldn’t ask for a better cast of supporting characters – from the hard-hitting reporter, Nadine Frist, to the ebullient singer, Mavis Freestone, to the cops in Eve’s squad at Cop Central, they are all outstanding. I really enjoyed this story because all of those supporting characters – and more – played key parts in solving the mystery and taking the bad guys down. I have read every book in the series – some of them several times – and there isn’t a clinker in the bunch!

The Pleasure Academy has been in the business of kidnapping young girls for many years. Once the girls are imprisoned within the academy, they are ‘trained’ to service the gentlemen who will eventually purchase them. There is no escape for the girls – no windows to climb out, no doors they can leave through. They either comply with the training or suffer very severe consequences. The Academy has survived all of these years because they are smart – very smart – with how they acquire the girls. They have tentacles all over the world and they never take from the same place – at least not close together. There is no single police force that has ever recognized the larger picture. Each force investigates its own kidnappings – with many thinking the girls have just run away. Then, the Academy makes a huge error. Two of the girls manage to figure a way to escape – one of them dies for it – and Lt. Eve Dallas catches her case.

From the beginning, things just don’t add up for Eve. This child had to have been well cared for, but she’s been missing for several months. Her hair is perfectly styled with expensive products – even her nails are perfectly manicured. But then, there is the sexy undergarments. Why would this young girl be wearing expensive silk underthings? When Eve identifies the girl as Mina Rose Cabot, a child missing from Devon, Pennsylvania – a child who was much loved – Eve knows she isn’t just looking for a murderer – she’s looking for a child abductor. There is a second set of bloodstains on Mina, and they belong to Dorian Gregg, a runaway from Freehold, New Jersey. Is Dorian lying dead somewhere and just hasn’t been found yet? Is she injured? Was she recaptured? Or, is she the one who took Mina’s life?

Eve, Roarke, Peabody, and the rest of the team put their laser focus on finding these child abductors and murderers only to learn that the operation is so much larger than they could ever have imagined. Eve and Roarke struggle with emotional issues as they work through the case – after all – what these children are going through is very similar to both of their backgrounds as children. That, of course, only makes them that much more determined to solve the case.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough. I believe it is one of my favorites of the series and I am quite sure it is one I’ll read again and again.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an Advanced Reader Copy (ARC) of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

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