Find Her

 

By Lisa Gardner

Kidnapped and put in a coffin-sized box is beyond cruel, but what is more cruel is to have to depend on your kidnapper for your very survival.  How long can one person endure?   A few days, a week, a month? 

 

Flora Dane survived 472 days of abuse, torture, and the weirdest type of imprisonment that went beyond the coffin-sized box.  

Five years have passed and though Flora feels much more prepared and has great survival skills, she is still having a hard time finding herself.  She seems to be on the quest to save other young women but soon finds herself in trouble once again.  Is Flora still a victim or has she herself become a criminal now?  With one man dead and Flora's disappearance, it's up to DD Warren to figure it all out.  At every turn, there are more questions than answers and the frustration of DD and her team is palpable.  At this point, there is only one thing that is clear  - They will know nothing for sure until they FIND HER.

Lisa Gardner did it again!  Find Her is a roller coaster of a ride with twists and turns and a storyline that kept me on the edge of my seat.  Luckily, stories like this don't happen very often in the "real world", but unfortunately, even something like this happening to one or two people is too much.  This story shows that a survivor's story does not end when their terror does.

 

Whisper Mountain

By Vivian Higginbotham Nichols

There's a reason why we have the saying "truth is stranger than fiction".  If Whisper Mountain was a fiction book, I might have come away saying that it is a great story, but some parts just seemed too extreme to happen in real life.  Since Whisper Mountain IS a true story and these things really DID happen, I walked away saying, "WOW! What a story, and what a life!"

It seemed more common than not that people of "older generations" were more selective in sharing details of certain experiences that life dished out to them. I know my grandfather and father-in-law who were both in WWII barely spoke about the details of their war experiences be they tragic or heroic.  It seems the same for Ida Williams.  If it weren't for her granddaughter's discovery, Ida's important and heroic story might never have been told. What a blessing it was that Vivian found her grandmother's journals! 

Ida Williams and her siblings amazed me with their resilience and fortitude. Even when death was staring Ida in the face, she stared right back and didn't give up. Much of what their mother put them through was unimaginable, but Ida and her siblings fought hard to help each other to survive.  This is a story of hardship, love, murder, determination, greed, and forgiveness.  

I must confess, when I first saw that Whisper Mountain took place in the late 1800's and early 1900's, I thought, "Uh Oh, no TVs, no indoor plumbing, no telephones, no excitement."  Boy was I wrong!  I was so engrossed in Ida's story, that once I started reading it, I couldn't stop.  I also liked the fact that much of it took place in Arkansas, since I am somewhat familiar with that area already. 

This story is definitely worth the read!

 

Glimpse of Death

By Leslie Wolfe

A Glimpse of Death was a decent read but my least favorite in this three part series by Leslie Wolfe. 

It is a fact that crime never stops even for FBI Agent Tess Winnett who is convalescing in the hospital after her heroic and successful close to The Watson Girl Case (from Book 2 of the series).   She joins forces again with local detectives Michowsky and Fradella as they seek her help on their latest case.  Now that Winnett has worked a few cases with Michowsky and Fradella, she knows they are both capable detectives, yet through her frustration, she is still very critical of them at times.  She catches herself, but usually only after the fact.  This seemed a bit overdone since she was just as much at a loss as they were when it came to actually finding something concrete to help them solve the case.  That being said, little by little they pieced together some very important clues, most importantly that these serial killers have been at it for a much longer time than they realized. Yes, serial killers...plural!  What's worse than having one crazed unstable person on the loose committing heinous crimes?  Having at least two of them working together like a well-oiled machine. 

  

This case goes from bad to worse when the latest target is someone Agent Winnett knows personally.  As the clues come together ever-so- slowly, Winnett and the detectives race against the clock to find the killers before they do more than just show their latest victim a glimpse of her impending death. 

 

 

 

The Watson Girl

By Leslie Wolfe


This story begs the question-How well do we really know the people that we know so well?

A whole family is murdered, at least that's what the monster thought, until he saw the "family sticker" on the van.  He killed three children - two boys and a girl. However, the sticker showed two girls and a boy.  He screwed up, but he couldn't imagine how.  He searched through the house one more time just to be sure, but there was no one else there (no one who was alive anyway).  Upon hearing sirens, he ran off, hoping his mistake wouldn't ruin him.  

Hours passed before Laura Watson was found.  She not only became known as the little five year old who survived while hiding in a laundry hamper, she also became known as The Watson Girl.   Though Laura was adopted by family friends, she still struggled growing up.  She couldn't remember her own family or the details of that horrific night.  At least the killer was captured; and now 15 years later, his execution was imminent.

With justice served, what else could go wrong?  Enter FBI Agent Tess Winnett.  She believes that the man behind bars known as The Family Man is a ruthless killer, just not the killer of the Watson family.  If the real killer is still roaming free, how long will it take him to seek out his only witness...to finally silence The Watson Girl forever?

I really like how Leslie Wolfe incorporates chapters in this story from the viewpoint of the killer.  Reading his firsthand account is a very realistic way to see how his sick mind works.  His arrogance reminded me a little of the narrator in Edgar Allan Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart.  In addition, I must add, I will never look at buying apples the same way again.

Dawn Girl

By Leslie Wolfe Two teens run off in the hours right before dawn. They run to the beach to be alone and you know...watch the sunrise! While Carl and Kris are enjoying themselves on the beach waiting for the morning light, a serial killer is a stone's throw away posing his latest victim. Once dawn's light shines through, Kris lets out a scream that both she and Carl would most likely never forget. There was a body of a dead girl right there on the beach where they were recently taking pictures and making memories. Little did they know their dream date would become a nightmare. Detective Gary Michowsky and the local police department were on the case, but soon thereafter Tess Willett of the FBI was sent in. Tess is a victim too, but no one knows that except Tess and her friend Cat. As Tess is fighting her own demons, she enters the crime scene of DAWN GIRL... a young woman posed dead on the beach at dawn.

Whether it's because of her personality or life experience, Tess is not much of a people person. I liked her interactions with Detective Michowsky. She was herself - a straight arrow who didn't pull any punches. Michowsky was a seasoned detective who, even though going through some rough times of his own, didn't feel the need to burden others with his problems. He did like to play it safe, but when it really counted, he put his life on the line for what he believed in.

As Tess worked the case, her own past continued to haunt her. Little by little pieces started to come together and in the end, a serial killer was found, but Tess got more than she bargained for!

I really enjoyed this book and am looking forward to reading the second book in the series - The Watson Girl.

Listen to the Shadows

 

By Joan Hall Hovey

Did you ever feel you were being watched, that things around you just weren't right?  Well, Katie Summers had those feelings for some time, but kept rationalizing them instead of Listening to the Shadows.  She learned the hard way that if something seems off, it probably is.

When Katie woke up from her coma after the accident, she tried to put the pieces together... After being stood up for a date, Katie drove home in horrendous weather, but it was the eyes of the dead man in her rear view mirror that caused the accident, not the pelting rain and wind. How could that be?  Even the mysteriously strange psychiatrist Dr. Shea thought something else was going on.  If there was a dead man in Katie's car, why wasn't the body still there when the police arrived at the accident scene?

Once released from the hospital, things didn't get better for Katie.  She lived in an old farmhouse in a secluded area. Things she once thought were quaint, like no central heat or electricity, lost their charm when the big empty house didn't feel so empty.  Though she was alone, the shadows told another story.

Interestingly enough, Dr. Shea kept showing up at the most opportune times. Opportune for him, or opportune for Katie?  Katie started to wonder.  She also started to wonder about many of the people she dealt with on a daily basis, because when things happen in the shadows, it's hard to tell who you can trust in the light!

 

Silent Child

By Sarah A. Denzil 

Emma is traumatized by her son Aiden's death. All that was recovered after the flood was his red jacket. It takes Emma over a decade to get her life back to "normal". Now married and almost ready to give birth, she gets a call from the police with news that her son has returned...no, not from the dead. Though Emma is overcome with joy, her life is once again shaken up as she realizes, little by little, what hell her son faced these past 10 years. They live in a small town where everyone knows everyone, so who could have committed such horrible acts towards her son? With Aiden too traumatized to speak, by the time Emma pieces together the truth, it might be too late for all of them.

Silent Child is a story with lots of twists and turns, not to mention some really twisted people too.