Category Archives: Meg Gardiner

January 14, 2018 · 11:57 pm

Review: Into the Black Nowhere by Meg Gardiner

Title: Into the Black Nowhere by Meg Gardiner
UNSUB Series Book Two
Publisher: Dutton
Genre: Contemporary, Mystery, Suspense
Length: 368 pages
Book Rating: B+

Complimentary Review Copy Provided by Publisher Through Penguin’s First to Read Program

Summary:

In this exhilarating thriller inspired by real-life serial killer Ted Bundy, FBI profiler Caitlin Hendrix faces off against a charming, merciless serial killer.

In southern Texas, on Saturday nights, women are disappearing. One vanishes from a movie theater. Another is ripped from her car at a stoplight. Another vanishes from her home while checking on her baby. Rookie FBI agent Caitlin Hendrix, newly assigned to the FBI’s elite Behavioral Analysis Unit, fears that a serial killer is roaming the dark roads outside Austin.

Caitlin and the FBI’s serial crime unit discover the first victim’s body in the woods. She’s laid out in a bloodstained, white baby-doll nightgown. A second victim in a white nightie lies deeper in the forest’s darkness. Both bodies are surrounded by Polaroid photos, stuck in the earth like headstones. Each photo pictures a woman in a white negligee, wrists slashed, suicide-style–posed like Snow White awaiting her prince’s kiss.

To track the UNSUB, Caitlin must get inside his mind. How is he selecting these women? Working with a legendary FBI profiler, Caitlin searches for a homology–that elusive point where character and action come together. She profiles a confident, meticulous killer who convinces his victims to lower their guard until he can overpower and take them in plain sight. He then reduces them to objects in a twisted fantasy–dolls for him to possess, control, and ultimately destroy. Caitlin’s profile leads the FBI to focus on one man: a charismatic, successful professional who easily gains people’s trust. But with only circumstantial evidence linking him to the murders, the police allow him to escape. As Saturday night approaches, Caitlin and the FBI enter a desperate game of cat and mouse, racing to capture the cunning predator before he claims more victims.

Review:

In the second installment of Meg Gardiner’s UNSUB  series, Into the Black Nowhere, rookie FBI profiler Caitlin Hendrix matches wits with a suspected serial killer.  This latest release works well as a standalone, but I highly recommend the first book in the series as well.

After another young, blond woman is abducted from her home, the Solace, TX police call on the FBI to help catch the person responsible for a total of six missing women. The kidnapper is brazen and snatches women not only from their homes, but public places as well. Caitlin, along with fellow agent Brianne Rainey and their boss Special Agent in Charge C.J. Emmerich, travel to the small town where they hope to glean enough information to form a profile of the suspect. Following a grisly discovery, the agents now know the kidnapped women are being murdered and even worse, they are not the killer’s first victims.  With the help of a former soldier, Caitlin is certain she has found the serial killer. However, with no evidence to support her theory, the police are unable to make an arrest. Caitlin hopes to force the suspect into making a mistake, but will she arrest him before he strikes again?

Caitlyn has settled into her new job at Quantico and although she is new to profiling, she is an experienced cop.  She is meticulous and insightful with keen instincts that rarely steer her wrong. She loves her career, but she and her ATF boyfriend Sean Rawlins are quickly discovering the downside to their long distance relationship as their busy careers conspire to keep them apart.

The investigation into the missing women is intense and Caitlin and her fellow agents feel the pressure to find the person responsible. Caitlin has no doubt she has located the killer, but he is quite clever and rather adroitly and arrogantly evades surveillance. The suspect knows how to get to under her skin which shakes her confidence, but she quickly recovers from the momentary slip. Trying to stay one step ahead of her confident and  supercilious suspect, Caitlin manages to trap her quarry, but once again, he out plans and outmaneuvers the FBI.

Into the Black Nowhere is an incredibly well-written and quite clever police procedural.  The plot closely mirrors the Ted Bundy case but Meg Gardiner keeps the storyline fresh and interesting. The novel comes to a nail-biting, edge of the seat conclusion.  While the current case is completely wrapped up, this latest addition to the UNSUB  series ends with a shocking cliff-hanger that will leave readers impatiently awaiting the next installment.

1 Comment

Filed under Contemporary, Dutton, Into the Black Nowhere, Meg Gardiner, Mystery, Rated B+, Review, Suspense, UNSUB Series

June 26, 2017 · 11:58 pm

Review: UNSUB by Meg Gardiner

Title: UNSUB by Meg Gardiner
UNSUB Series Book One
Publisher: Dutton
Genre: Contemporary, Mystery, Suspense
Length: 381 pages
Book Rating: B+

Complimentary Review Copy Provided by Publisher Through Penguin’s First to Read Program

Summary:

A riveting psychological thriller inspired by the never-caught Zodiac Killer, about a young detective determined to apprehend the serial murderer who destroyed her family and terrorized a city twenty years earlier.

Caitlin Hendrix has been a Narcotics detective for six months when the killer at the heart of all her childhood nightmares reemerges: the Prophet. An UNSUB—what the FBI calls an unknown subject—the Prophet terrorized the Bay Area in the 1990s and nearly destroyed her father, the lead investigator on the case.

The Prophet’s cryptic messages and mind games drove Detective Mack Hendrix to the brink of madness, and Mack’s failure to solve the series of ritualized murders—eleven seemingly unconnected victims left with the ancient sign for Mercury etched into their flesh—was the final nail in the coffin for a once promising career.

Twenty years later, two bodies are found bearing the haunting signature of the Prophet. Caitlin Hendrix has never escaped the shadow of her father’s failure to protect their city. But now the ruthless madman is killing again and has set his sights on her, threatening to undermine the fragile barrier she rigidly maintains for her own protection, between relentless pursuit and dangerous obsession.

Determined to decipher his twisted messages and stop the carnage, Caitlin ignores her father’s warnings as she draws closer to the killer with each new gruesome murder. Is it a copycat, or can this really be the same Prophet who haunted her childhood? Will Caitlin avoid repeating her father’s mistakes and redeem her family name, or will chasing the Prophet drag her and everyone she loves into the depths of the abyss?

Review:

The first book in a new mystery series, UNSUB by Meg Gardiner is a high-octane police procedural about the search for a chilling serial killer known as the Prophet.

When a gruesome murder scene appears to indicate the Prophet has inexplicably begun killing after a twenty year absence, homicide detectives turn to narcotics Detective Caitlyn Hendrix for assistance.  Caitlyn’s father, Mack Hendrix, worked the original investigation so police hope she can offer insight into the current case.  Caitlyn is soon hard at work attempting to solve the cryptic message the killer leaves behind but can she succeed where her father failed and bring the killer to justice?

Caitlyn is incredibly smart but she is still an inexperienced detective.  She also has a personal connection to the case which has the potential to cloud her judgment during the investigation. The first order of business is to figure out if the current murders are the work of a copycat and if not, why did the murders stop?  Caitlyn is extremely focused as she attempts to figure out the meaning of the Prophet’s messages but she has made little progress when he strikes again.

The investigation has barely begun as the Prophet claims more victims.  The murders are increasingly violent and carefully staged.  Caitlyn is having a difficult remaining detached as the pressure mounts to understand the reason for the murders.  The case takes a personal turn when Caitlyn’s boyfriend, ATF agent Sean Rawlins, goes missing right after she finally discovers the Prophet’s motivation for the murders, the cryptic messages and the elaborate staging at the crime scenes. With very little information to go on, Caitlyn, Mack and the rest of the team are in a race against time to locate Sean before it is too late.

UNSUB is an unbelievably fast-paced and engrossing police procedural. Meg Gardiner ratchets up the tension with back to back murders, enigmatic clues and increasingly grotesque staging at the crime scenes. The novel comes to an adrenaline-filled, pulse pounding conclusion that neatly sets up the next book in the series.

1 Comment

Filed under Contemporary, Dutton, Meg Gardiner, Mystery, Rated B+, Review, Suspense, UNSUB, UNSUB Series