Inside Man by John McMahon

 

The team:  Gardner Camden, Joanne "Shooter" Harris, Cassie Pardo, and Richie Brancato, the rookie.

"(We) work for an FBI unit called PAR, which stands for Patterns and Recognition....Our job is to identify peculiarities in cases that have stalled or gone cold. To uncover details that others have missed, then hand the case off, either back to the field office that sent it to us--or to a team in Quantico. When people speak well of us, they call us puzzle-solvers. When they don't, we are thought of as oddballs. Freaks with a bent toward data. Often, they call us 'head cases.'"

Gardner Camden is the leader of this eccentric team, the oddest...and the smartest. He sees and calculates patterns others can't. He also has to remind himself to make small talk, and to smile, and try to show concern for others. Though never with his young daughter, Camila. With her, "I try not to be me."

He and his team are working a fraud case in Florida that quickly becomes complicated with a dead C.I., a missing shipment of ghost guns, the threat of domestic terrorism, and a possible serial killer.

My thoughts:  This book is as propulsive and gripping as McMahon's first Gardner Camden mystery, Head Cases, which was one of my favorite reads last year. Gardner is one of those characters that you can't help but like. And he's dealing with a lot in this novel. I love his interactions with his daughter, and how he figures out the intricacies of this cases. I couldn't put this one down. This novel is well-written, intense, compelling and entertaining. 

My rating:  ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Happy Reading! 

Head Cases by John McMahon

 

First lines:  Riddles. Those are my specialty. That is, when I'm not studying patterns. Or decoding enigmas. Some might say that solving puzzles is all I'm good for. That leaving my desk in the Jacksonville office of the FBI to interact with real people is not the best use of my time or talent. And I would agree with them. 

The plot:  FBI agent Gardner Camden is a genius, except when it comes to his social skills. And he's just one of the quirky agents that make up the FBI's Patterns and Recognition (PAR) unit. They get called in when a recently murdered man is discovered to be a serial killer the FBI thought died years ago. The death of a second serial killer who was just paroled makes Camden realize they have a unique killer on their hands:  a serial killer of serial killers. And one who leaves behind a trail of enigmatic clues and riddles. Let the cat-and-mouse game begin.

My thoughts: When I check out a book like this I'm always hoping for a thriller that's both riveting and unexpected. And this book blew me away! I loved Gardner Camden with all his quirks and amazing analytical abilities. The other members of PAR were also engaging and likable. I was drawn in with those first lines and could not put this one down. It reads so fast, and the mystery is so compelling! I loved how McMahon wove all the threads together...and how Camden figures it out. This will definitely be on my favorite reads list at the end of the year. And I really hope McMahon writes a sequel.

My rating:  ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 

Happy Reading!

Hearts of Darkness by Jana Monroe

 

When Jana Monroe was growing up all she wanted to do was right the wrongs of the world. This desire led her to become one of the few female police officers in Long Beach, California. A few years later, she applied for and got accepted into the FBI where she made a mark as one of only a few women in a male-dominated world. She worked cases in New Mexico and Florida before starting training with the FBI's world-renowned Behaviorial Science Unit. With the BSU, she consulted on more than 850 homicide cases, profiling serial killers and helping to catch murderers. She even coached Jodie Foster on her role as Clarice Starling in the movie The Silence of the Lambs.

Her biography, Hearts of Darkness, was my nonfiction read for this month, and it's such a compelling book! Monroe chronicles her time in the FBI with both honesty and humor. And her writing feels very conversational as she relates her most memorable cases and experiences. And she certainly saw the worst of humanity in her job. But she never stopped working to make a difference. Her resilience and intelligence shines through on every page. She's a remarkable woman. And this book is a mix of memoir and true crime that I found very interesting. 4/5 stars.

Happy Reading!

Still Waters by Sara Driscoll

 

The plot:  Meg Jennings is a search-and-rescue dog handler for the FBI's Human Scent Evidence Team. Her K-9 partner is a black labrador named Hawk. They're camping in Minnesota with several other search teams for a weekend of water search training. There's also a trials competition for all the handlers and their dogs...a competition Meg hopes she and Hawk will win. But then, on the second day, Hawk alerts to the dead body of one of their competitors. And Meg finds herself one of the suspects. She and her friends must move quickly to find the real killer.

My thoughts:  There are so many reasons I love this K-9 mystery series! The setting is always different and interesting. The search-and-rescue work with the dogs is fascinating. And there's not just Meg and Hawk, but also fellow FBI handler Brian with his German Shepherd, Lacey. They make a good team; and their dogs are so endearing! I also love Meg's relationship with firefighter, Todd Webb, and her friendship with newspaper reporter, McCord. It's really the characters and their interactions that make these books so good. (The camping scenes in this one with Meg, Todd and their friends were especially fun.) And, of course, the murder investigation in this one was as compelling as ever. This series just gets better and better, which is another reason why it's one of my favorites. 

Happy Reading!

Other books in this series I've reviewed:         

Lone Wolf  #1

Storm Rising  #3

No Man's Land  #4

Leave No Trace  #5

  

Echoes of the Dead by Spencer Kope

 "Some days are hard, others make hard look easy. Today was the latter. If you spend enough time in law enforcement, such days will find you from time to time. If you spend a couple of years with the Special Tracking Unit, such days are known as Wednesday."

 

Magnus "Steps" Craig has a special ability:  he can see the essence, or Shine, left behind by a person on any surface they touch, making it possible for him to track them almost anywhere. He and his partner, Special Agent Jimmy Donovan, make up the FBI's elite Special Tracking Unit, and they've just been summoned to Kern County, California. It seems four friends, including Congressman Marco Perez, have gone missing on their annual fly-fishing trip along the Kern River. And not even Steps can catch a glimpse of their trail. It's as if they've disappeared into thin air. But then one of the missing men turns up dead, and their investigation quickly takes a very dark turn. It seems they have a killer on their hands, one with a shine like malachite.

I loved this one! Steps and his partner, Jimmy, are such fun characters, each with their own quirks. Only a few people know about Steps' special gift, but it's fascinating how he uses it to track down the bad guys. (And the killer in this one is scary!) Their investigation to find the missing men is intense and suspenseful. Be warned, parts of this book do get a bit dark, and there is one pretty gruesome murder scene. But it's all the parts with Steps that make this fourth book in the series so compelling and good.

Happy Reading!

Other favorite books in this series:

Collecting the Dead (#1)

Shadows of the Dead (#3)

Every Waking Hour by Joanna Schaffhausen

 

As a teenager, Ellery Hathaway was abducted by notorious serial killer Francis Coben. She barely survived. Now she's a detective in Boston, still slightly broken and fragile, and still on probation with the department. She's also sort of seeing Reed Markham, the FBI agent who found and rescued her all those years ago. Not that she's great at relationships. She and Reed are on a picnic with his seven-year-old daughter, Tula, when a twelve-year-old girl goes missing from that same Boston park. But was Chloe Lockhart abducted? Or did she run away on her own? The discovery that Chloe's older half-brother, Trevor, was murdered before she was ever born certainly complicates things. Is her disappearance somehow connected to his death? Reed joins Ellery's investigation as they hurry to hunt down the truth and find Chloe before it's too late.

This is the fourth book Joanna Schaffhausen has written about Ellery Hathaway and Reed Markham. And while her mysteries are always well-plotted and compelling, it's her characters that I love. This case is especially hard for Ellery because of her own traumatic past--a past that complicates every aspect of her life. Including her feelings for Reed. And loving Ellery definitely complicates Reed's life. But they make a great team when they're working together to solve a case.

I thought Every Waking Hour was an amazing psychological thriller! And with that ending, I hope Schaffhausen hurries up and writes the next book in this series ASAP. 

Happy Reading!

The other books in this series (which I also loved):

#1 - The Vanishing Season 

#2 - No Mercy

#3 - All the Best Lies

A K-9 Mystery...

 

FBI agents Meg Jennings and Brian Foster and their dogs, Hawk and Lacey, have been sent to Blue Ridge, Georgia to track down an elusive killer who's been shooting people with a compound bow and arrow. All the murder victims seem to be connected to a proposed dam being built in the area; the resulting reservoir would wipe out several homes and farms. It's also being built on land claimed by the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. Which leaves plenty of suspects for the FBI to investigate.

What I love about Sara Driscoll's FBI K-9 novels is the relationship between Meg and her dog, Hawk, and how she and Hawk use their unique skill set to track down the truth. Leave No Trace is the fifth book in this series, and it's another solid and entertaining mystery. There's good suspense. And Driscoll includes a lot of history about Georgia and the Cherokee in this one, which I found both interesting and sad. Meg's relationship with her firefighter boyfriend, Todd Webb, also deepens in this one, which made me happy. I like the two of them together. And the dogs? They're as awesome as ever. If you're into K-9 mysteries, this is a very good series to check out!

Happy Reading!

Other fun K-9 reads:

A Borrowing of Bones by Paula Munier

Killing Trail by Margaret Mizushima

No Man's Land by Sara Driscoll

Breaking Creed by Alex Kava

No Man's Land by Sara Driscoll

 Urbexing:  Urban exploration, usually of abandoned or nearly inaccessible man-made structures.

From the blurb:
"For Meg Jennings and her K-9 companion, Hawk, exploring the ruins of a deserted building is an exciting way to sharpen their skills without the life-or-death stakes they face as part of the FBI's Human Scent Evidence Team. But deep in the echoing rooms of an abandoned asylum, Hawk finds the body of an elderly woman. The victim couldn't have made her way into the derelict building on her own. Before forty-eight hours pass, Meg learns of more cases of elders found dead in neglected urban structures.

There's not enough evidence to link the deaths--yet. But Meg scents a pattern, and when she gets word of another senior gone missing, she and Hawk don't hesitate. Meg is sure a murderer is hunting the elderly, and she can prove it if she can just find a connection. It will take the expert coordination of her whole team, along with help from Clay McCord and Todd Webb, to uncover the means, let alone a motive. And to stop someone who has operated in the dark for so long, Meg will need to risk more than she has to give . . ."

My thoughts:
This is a fun series that just keeps getting better with each book. My favorite parts, of course, are all the ones involving Meg's dog, Hawk, and his work as an FBI search-and-rescue dog. In this one, he and Meg have to search several old and abandoned buildings, which made for some very interesting and suspenseful settings. I also loved how the author included urbexing terms and definitions at the beginning of every chapter. Who knew urbexing was even a thing?

The mystery in this one is unique and compelling. I really enjoyed watching Meg and the others figure it out.

And those interesting friends and co-workers of Meg's? They're one more reason I keep reading this series. I like how Meg's sister, Cara, and Clay McCord, a Washington reporter, add insight (and some mad research skills) in helping Meg solve her cases. And I really like Meg's interactions with Todd Webb, her fire-fighter boyfriend. They make a good team. And it's because of these relationships, and how they grow and change over time, that it's best to read this series in order, starting with the first book, Lone Wolf.

Happy Reading!

Bookish Suspense...

"Five women have disappeared from Gideon County, Texas, in the last six months. The latest was two nights ago. The victims have all vanished on Saturday night. And the period between abductions is diminishing. Commonalities between the abductions indicate that we're dealing with a single offender. Someone who's growing bolder, more confident."

Three FBI agents from the BAU--C.J. Emmerich, Brianne Rainey, and rookie Caitlin Hendrix--head to Texas to help chase down this escalating serial killer. Into the Black Nowhere by Meg Gardiner is a compelling cat-and-mouse game  between Caitlin and the killer. The suspense really picks up towards the end, making the last half unputdownable. I thought it read a lot like an episode of Criminal Minds, but without the overly graphic crime scenes. Caitlin, the main narrator, is very well developed. She has flaws and fears, grit and stick-to-itiveness, and a complicated past; I liked her a lot. The secondary characters were all good, too. And the killer is scarily manipulative, which made the book even better. And even though this is Gardiner's second UNSUB novel, you don't necessarily need to read the first one in order to enjoy this one. I didn't. Though I intend to go back and read it in the very near future. Gardiner's a great author. I'm excited to check out her many other novels.

Happy Reading!

Similar Read:  Blood Mist by Mark Roberts

                        The Vanishing Season by Joanna Schaffhausen
                        Color Blind by ColbyMarshall

Bookish suspense...

"I'm tired of collecting the dead."

Known as The Human Bloodhound, Magnus "Steps" Craig is part of the FBI's elite three-man Special Tracking Unit. He can find the lost and abducted. He can even find the dead. And he doesn't need physical clues or footprints in order to track them down; he can follow the essence they leave behind.

"...my special gift. I see the hidden; I see the shine, every touch, every footfall, every hand on a wall. Some might call it an aura, I just call it life energy; either way it leaves its soft glowing trace on everything we come in contact with... sometimes it's chartreuse, or muddy mauve, or flaming coral, or crimson baked-earth. Every shine is different and specific to a person..."

So when Steps stumbles across a distinctive black shine at his local mall, he quickly recognizes it as belonging to a killer he's seen before; a killer he's been trying to catch for ten years. Now he and his partner are not only on the trail of this elusive murderer from Step's past, the one they've dubbed "Leonardo", but they've got another serial killer to hunt down in the Pacific Northwest. This one has been abducting and killing young women with brunette hair and leaving a sad face behind at each scene as his calling card. And they've got to hurry before the Sad Face killer murders his latest victim, a young woman named Lauren whose shine is pure gold.  No wonder Steps can't sleep at night.

Collecting the Dead by Spencer Kope is a crazy good mystery/thriller. I love Magnus "Steps" Craig; he's such an appealing character:  complicated, a bit haunted, smart, and funny. His secret tracking ability is pretty cool, too. And I really like his friendship with his partner, Special Agent Jimmy Donovan. They make a great team! Besides having great characters, this novel is also suspenseful, fast-paced, smart, well-written, and very entertaining. I was hooked from the first page to the last. I hope Kope hurries up and writes his next book about this unforgettable and completely awesome character because I already can't wait to read it.

Happy Reading!

Another serendipitous find from the L shelf...

Title:  The Watcher in the Wall
Author:  Owen Laukkanen
Genre:  Psychological thriller

Main Characters:  Carla Windermere, an intense and driven FBI agent, and her partner, Kirk Stevens, a cop with twenty years experience who's now a special agent with Minnesota's Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.

The Premise:  A classmate of Stevens' daughter commits suicide and she wants her father to look into it. When he and Windermere do, they discover an online chat room dedicated to suicide and fear that there's another teen out there about to take her own life. But was it a real suicide pact, or something more sinister? As their investigation continues, Windermere starts to believe it's the latter.

"This wasn't about finding some suicidal mystery girl, not any longer. There was something going on here, something deeper than a couple of kids with a death wish."

But an online predator like this is hard to catch. Still, Windermere and Stevens are going to do everything they can to catch him before he causes more teens to die.

My thoughts:  This is a good read. It's fast-paced and intense and the premise of an online predator stalking lonely teenagers and urging them to commit suicide is very chilling. I also liked that there's not a ton of language or graphic violence in it, just good writing.  I found it hard to put down at the end. This lucky find from the L shelf is psychological suspense at its best. Even better? Laukkanen's written several other books about these characters which means there are more thrillers waiting on the L shelf for me to read and enjoy.

Happy Reading!