Dutton
February 06, 2018
400 pages
add to Goodreads/buy from Book Depository/or Amazon
In #1 New York Times bestselling author Lisa Gardner's latest twisty thrill ride, Detective D. D. Warren and Find Her's Flora Dane return in a race against the clock to either save a young girl's life . . . or bring her to justice.
The home of a family of five is now a crime scene: four of them savagely murdered, one—a sixteen-year-old girl—missing. Was she lucky to have escaped? Or is her absence evidence of something sinister? Detective D. D. Warren is on the case—but so is survivor-turned-avenger Flora Dane. Seeking different types of justice, they must make sense of the clues left behind by a young woman who, whether as victim or suspect, is silently pleading, Look for me.
"Whatever she was about to see, it was not her job to feel. It was her job to fix." (Pg 14)
Boston Sergeant Detective D.D. Warren is back in the ninth entry to the series (well, ninth full length novel). It was supposed to be a nice day with her husband and son, doing something not cop related, but once again work calls. The home, now a crime scene, is horrible but also leaves one question: where is the last member of the family?
Sixteen-year-old Roxanna Baez is missing (along with the family's two elderly dogs) and D.D. doesn't know if Roxy is victim or suspect.
Look for Me really steps things up from the previous novels in the series. I loved them and the way that we also had the perpetrator's point-of-view (or a perpetrator). It added anxiety to the story because you often knew something bad might be going to happen, you only hoped the good guys would stop it in time. In this book, though, we get things from D.D.'s perspective and from Flora Dane's.
Putting aside the fact that I am really, really happy we got more of Flora Dane (she was part of Find Her, which you really should read first), the way this story was presented was great. It made the most of the mystery and allowed readers some great insight into all of the main players. We don't know Roxy's role in everything so you think you want D.D. and Flora to figure things out, but some revelations are painful and tragic enough that I wondered if I really wanted the truth.
Roxy's perspective is made a part of the tale, but through a medium different than narration. It is not her present that readers receive, but glimpses into her past. This keeps the mystery going, but also lets us see that things have not always been so normal and safe and happy for Roxy, Lola, and their family. What we learn of their past is all the more heartbreaking because of basis in reality.
I absolutely enjoyed the way we had D.D. and her family, how she tried to balance that with her (often gruesome) work; then we had Flora, her past and how she was trying to make a present for herself; and the Baez family with its past - its secrets - and what that meant for their present.
As with each of the preceding books, I loved finding out more about D.D., Jack and Alex, unraveling and ultimately solving the mystery. I also hope that there will be more of Flora Dane in future books, she plays against D.D.'s character really well and its great seeing how far (or not far) she's come since we met her.
digital review copy received from publisher, via NetGalley
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