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!
