The Trespasser (Dublin Murder Squad #6) by Tana French

Title: The Trespasser: A Novel
Classification: Adult Fiction
Genre: Crime Fiction/Murder Mystery/Thriller
Series: Dublin Murder Squad
Format: Hardcover; 464 pages
Publisher: Viking; First Printing edition (October 4, 2016)
ISBN-10: 0670026336
ISBN-13: 978-0670026333
Author's Website: http://www.tanafrench.com/
Notes: I bought this one.



“The vic,” I say, tapping the photo of Aislinn with my marker. “Aislinn Murray, twenty-six, lived alone in Stoneybatter, worked as a receptionist at a firm selling bathroom supplies to businesses. No criminal record, no calls to us. Assaulted yesterday evening in her home: Cooper’s preliminary exam says she took a punch to the face and hit her head on the fireplace surround. Texts on her phone narrow down the time to between 7:13 and 8:09.” I move to Rory’s photo. “This guy here, Rory Fallon, he’s been seeing her for a couple of months. He was due at her house for dinner at eight o’clock.”At first it looked to be a classic case of boy beats girl. Aislinn Murray was getting ready for a date when something went terribly wrong. As detective Antoinette Conway and her partner, Stephen Moran, begin interviewing friends, neighbors, and the primary suspect, however, a different story slowly begins to emerge. With the media breathing down their neck for justice and pressure from their superiors to get the job done, Antoinette and Steve will have to chose between taking the easy way out or getting to the bottom of what really happened.

 “If you want to kill someone, have enough respect for my time to make it someone, anyone, other than the most gobsmackingly obvious person in the world.” 

Detective Antoinette Conway just got her wish.

This is the sixth book of the Dublin Murder Squad series. If you haven't read the previous books, that's just fine. Each book of the series is self contained, and you're lucky if you catch even a glimpse of one of the other main characters in the series.

I've read all of Ms. French's books, and this is the first one that didn't draw me in from the first chapter. Antoinette is a rather abrasive character. She's a women trying to make it in a predominantly male profession and she's struggling to find her place within it. She's convinced she's on her last legs with the murder squad, and that this case was given to her to drive the final nail into her proverbial coffin and her partner, Steve, will be collateral damage. All the pranks that have been played on her since she arrived in the Murder Squad have put a chip on her shoulder, and she's constantly on the defensive.

What I found quite interesting, as the story developed, was how similar Aislinn, the murder victim, was to Antoinette. I found quite a few parallels between the two, and I almost felt the two were mirror images of each other—both relative and opposite at the same time, and therein, in my humble opinion, lies the brilliance of the book. Both had grown up without their fathers during the critical years of their lives. Both had people keeping information about their fathers from them. Both had a hard time growing up. Both were underestimated because they were women. I think it’s safe to say both had tempers. Interestingly, however, they took two very different paths. Aislinn used her gender to her advantage while Antoinette had it used against her. One chose vengeance while the other chose to avenge others. By comparing the two, I could see how Antoinette’s life could have taken a very different path. I felt the way the book played out was the author's way of trying to make us see how thin the line there is between right and wrong and how easy it is to cross.

Favorite quotes:
- 'You can knock down a genuine belief, if you load up with enough facts that contradict it; but a belief that’s built on nothing except who the person wants to be, nothing can crumble that.'

- 'I was doing exactly the same thing as Aislinn: getting lost so deep inside the story in my head, I couldn’t see past its walls to the outside world. I feel those walls shift and start to waver, with a rumble that shakes my bones from the inside out. I feel my face naked to the ice-flavored air that pours through the cracks and keeps coming. A great shiver is building in my back.'

- 'Every murderer says that to us, sooner or later. You weren’t there. You don’t understand. There’s a small dry chip of silence while no one points that out.'

Overall, I gave this one 4 out of 5 roses. I loved the different nuances between Aislinn and Antoinette's personalities. While I guessed who dunnit early on, I enjoyed the twist that I didn't see coming. I wish the book would have explored how Antoinette dealt with the information she'd uncovered about what was behind the squad's attitude towards her. It felt like a subject that should have been broached. Additionally, I would have liked Antoinette's side of the story of what actually went down. She only hinted at it when she stated the person used enough truth to make their lie believable. I kept wondering what truly happened?

The order of the Dublin Murder Squad:

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

Title: The Girl on the Train
Classification: Realistic Fiction
Genre: Murder /Mystery;Contemporary;Thriller
Format: Hardcover; 336 pages
Publisher: Riverhead Books (2015)
ISBN-10: 1594633665
ISBN-13: 978-1594633669
Author's Website: http://paulahawkinsbooks.com/
Notes: I bought this one.




Every work day morning, Rachel  takes the 8:04 train into London. When the train allows it, she watches a couple she doesn't know, but whom she's created her own story for. She's named them Jess and Jason and has filled in some the missing pieces while idealizing them in her mind as the perfect happy couple. That is until one day she sees something which prompts her to go talk to Jess and confront her.

'Buckinghamshire Police are becoming increasingly concerned for the welfare of a missing twenty-nine-year-old woman, Megan Hipwell, of Blenheim Road, Witney. Mrs. Hipwell was last seen by her husband, Scott Hipwell, on Saturday night when she left the couple’s home to visit a friend at around seven o’clock. Her disappearance is “completely out of character,” Mr. Hipwell said. Mrs. Hipwell was wearing jeans and a red T-shirt. She is five foot four, slim, with blond hair and blue eyes. Anyone with information regarding Mrs. Hipwell is requested to contact Buckinghamshire Police.'

The actual name of the girl Rachel dubbed as Jess is Megan Hipwell and she went missing the night Rachel went to see her.

'I know it sounds unlikely. What could I have done? Gone to Blenheim Road, attacked Megan Hipwell, disposed of her body somewhere and then forgotten all about it? It sounds ridiculous. It is ridiculous. But I know something happened on Saturday. I knew it when I looked into that dark tunnel under the railway line, my blood turning to ice water in my veins.'

Rachel has a drinking problem and somewhere in the jumbled drunken memories of her mind she may hold the key to what happened to Megan Hipwell. She knows she was on her way to see her. She knows she got off the train. After that there are only scattered bits and pieces of memories and feelings. Can she puzzle it all together? Will she regret it once she does?

“I don’t remember things,” I said. “I black out and I can’t remember where I’ve been or what I’ve done. Sometimes I wonder if I’ve done or said terrible things, and I can’t remember. And if . . . if someone tells me something I’ve done, it doesn’t even feel like me. It doesn’t feel like it was me who was doing that thing. And it’s so hard to feel responsible for something you don’t remember. So I never feel bad enough. I feel bad, but the thing that I’ve done—it’s removed from me. It’s like it doesn’t belong to me.”

This was a mental roller coaster of a thrill ride. Rachel is an emotional train wreck who should really be going to AA(Alcoholics Anonymous). She's basically hit rock bottom and needs to pull herself up out of the bottomless pit she's managed to sink herself into, and when Megan Hipwell disappears, she uses it as the lifeline she needs to do so. It gives her a purpose and helps her to see just how far she's fallen. It also makes her realize she's not the only one who has problems. Life isn't fair and people who don't deserve it have bad things happen to them. She's not alone.

The book is written from three points of view--- Rachel's, Megan's, and Anna's. Rachel is at a pivotal crossroads in her life. We, the reader, enter into the picture at an informational juncture where her past and future are discovered simultaneously while seemingly going in two opposite directions in the story line. We learn about Rachel's past beginning with the present working backwards. We learn about the future going forward from the present.

Whether intentional or accidental I thought the use of the train in this book was sheer genius and I love how the author did this. Trains often times in literature represent a journey--a time of self discovery and/or a period of transformation to somewhere or something new. I feel the train ride symbolizes her life. You can take a train to many places and once you reach a hub you can go back to where you came from or travel on to somewhere new. I feel that appropriately represents where we find Rachel. She has to decide where her life will take her and she can go in many directions. Rachel is presently at a place where she can choose to stay where she is reliving the past and never really getting anywhere or she can travel forward into an uncertain future.

The perspectives of Megan and Anna are used to give us clues/bread crumbs as to what happened to Megan and a little insight as to what happened to Rachel in the past. Anna is Rachel's ex-husbands new wife. The neighborhood Megan lived in was the one Rachel lived in with her husband. That is probably the real reason she became so obsessed with Megan and Jason. They reminded her of the way her life used to be. It also provided her a convenient distraction from seeing the old house she used to live in (that you can see from the tracks) that her ex and his new wife now live in. I can't begin to imagine what it would be like to have to pass that every day on your commute into London. I must warn you if you've recently gone through a breakup or divorce, this may not be the book for you. There are some heavy emotions that get tossed around, and if you're not in a good place emotionally, you may not want to venture into this one. I guarantee it will wake those emotions.

Overall, I gave this one 4 1/2 out of 5 roses. While I figured out the twist before the end, I loved all the twists and turns, the highly emotional ride, and finding out if my suspicions were correct. I can easily see why this one would become a movie. I look forward to seeing it in a theater.

Early Review of The Bitter Season (Kovac and Liska #5) by Tami Hoag

Title: The Bitter Season (Kovac and Liska)
Classification: Adult Fiction
Genre: Thriller/Murder Mystery
Series: Kovac / Liska
Format: Hardcover; 416 pages
Publisher: Dutton (January 12, 2016)
ISBN-10: 0525954554
ISBN-13: 978-0525954552
Author's Website: http://tamihoag.com/
Notes: I received an eARC loan from the publisher for reviewing purposes.


Once upon a time in November, the bitterest of seasons, one of Minneapolis' finest was gunned down in his own backyard. There were no witnesses. There was no DNA. There were no fingerprints. There were no clues. There was nothing to track down, so the case went cold. That is until now. Detective Nikki Liska is the lead detective in charge of the new cold case unit. Against her better judgement, Ted Duffy's murder will be her first case.

Meanwhile there is no rest for the wicked. A murder investigation is underway for the recent deaths of a College professor and his wife. Detective Sam Kovac is heading up the investigation, and it has all the trappings of a gory mess. Whether the couple's murder was random or the work of a newly minted serial killer remains to be seen. The horrific nature of the killings, however, will keep the city on edge until a murder suspect is found.

This is the fifth book in the Kovac and Liska series. The two former partners are dealing with the transition of doing their jobs without having the other to rely on. The two had worked together for a long time, and while they enjoyed working together,  Liska is looking forward to spending more time with her boys who are growing into young men right before her very eyes. The cold case unit offers her the opportunity to do what she does best---solve crimes, but with a less grueling schedule. If you haven't read the previous books in the series, don't worry. I had no prior history with the series and had no problem getting into and keeping up with what was happening.

Liska is a tough cookie who rolls with the punches and deals with what life throws at her. Kovac is tough as well, but is set in his ways. He's not happy about losing his partner and isn't making it easy on anyone forced to pair with him. Two potential partners have already transferred out of the unit, and he's presently working with a third. Between the two former partners, I think Kovac is having a harder time adjusting. 

Overall, I gave this one 4 out of 5 roses. This was a story that had me wondering whodunit until the bitter end. I tried to puzzle out the connection between the two cases, but the author had me stumped. Yes, I could figure out bits and pieces, but like a good jigsaw, I didn't get the complete picture until the last piece fell into place. That is just the sort of mystery I like best. It was fast paced, kept my attention, and had a twist I didn't see coming. The characters were likable and easy to connect with. I wish there'd been a few more bread crumbs along the way, but I guess that would have given the ending away. One of the devices the author used in this book is circles--how things come full circle. How the circle of life happens. I can't help but wonder if this is some type of foreshadowing. Since the author separated her two main heroes I wonder if  this signifies that one will go bad or die, if they'll end up working together again in the future, or if the series will split off into two separate series? I checked to see if perhaps this was the end of the series, but saw no evidence to suggest it. I guess we'll have to wait and see what Ms. Hoag has up her sleeve for these two. I, for one, am looking forward to it.

Order of the series:

Release Day Review of Shadowkiller (Nightwatcher #3) by Wendy Corsi Staub

• Title: Shadowkiller
• Classification: Adult Fiction
• Genre: Murder Mystery
• Mass Market Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: Harper (January 29, 2013)
• ISBN-10: 0062070320
• ISBN-13: 978-0062070326

Author's Website: http://www.wendycorsistaub.com/

Ten years ago she disappeared. Her coworkers had been killed when the hijackers crashed their plane into the twin towers. The floor she had worked on was one of the first to be hit. She'd had a gut feeling that day that something bad was going to happen, and so she'd skipped work. She'd used the tragedy to mask her escape into obscurity. She'd left behind her old life and the husband who had told her just that morning he was leaving her. She'd never looked back until she'd seen the news report where she realized her former husband had married the woman who lived across the hall from them. The woman who had been Carrie's original reason for moving to New York. The woman whom eleven years earlier she'd planned to seek retribution from. A plan she would resurrect and put back into motion...

This was the third book in the Nightwatcher series. A series that has been following Allison Taylor MacKenna. I haven't read the first two books, but man, this poor woman is like a serial killer magnet. After narrowly escaping both the Nightwatcher and another serial killer, she's once again the object of a killer's attention. I didn't feel lost by not reading the first two books, but I am curious now what happened in them. While in this book we know who wants Allison dead, we don't know exactly why until the pieces start to slowly fall into place. While I guessed what the link was between Allison and Carrie, I couldn't wait to get the big picture of all the events which lead up to the suspenseful ending.

The book is segregated into three parts, some of which happens simultaneously. In one section, we get the murderer's point of view. We get into her head and witness first hand the plotting and execution of her plan. We get bits and pieces of scattered memories as the story toggles between the present and the past, and we slowly learn the connection between the two woman and the events that led up to the hate and rage that fills the killer. I almost felt the title should have been the anatomy of a serial murderer, because we got such a close look at the thought process that went behind the murderer's plan. We see what makes her tick, and how she justifies it all in her head.

The second section follows what is going on in  the lives of the killer's potential victims, Mack and Allison. It brings us up to speed with where they are, what they're doing, and what their plans are. We get a little insight into how they've been coping with the events which transpired the previous year which put the them all in danger and killed their neighbor.

The third section has us following the detectives assigned to the case. It allows us to witness how the detectives use all the little pieces of information they find and collect to solve the crime and catch the killer. We also see the impact a murder can have on the friends and family of the victims. Additionally, we get insight as to how the crimes affect the detectives and spurs their desire to catch and stop the killer.

Overall this one gets a 3 1/2 out of 5 roses. Plenty of action, drama, and suspense in this one. In some ways, the book reminded me a little of a brain teaser where I tried to piece together a puzzle before all the parts were provided and before time was up (the end).

Order of  the series:

Early Review of Broken Harbor (Dublin Murder Squad, #4) by Tana French

• Title: Broken Harbor: A Novel
• Classification: Adult Fiction
• Genre: Murder Mystery
• Hardcover: 464 pages
• Publisher: Viking Adult (July 24, 2012)
• ISBN-10: 0670023655
• ISBN-13: 978-0670023653

Author's Website: http://www.tanafrench.com/
To Read an excerpt CLICK HERE

Brianstown, formerly Broken Harbor, is a new development. Before the economy took a nosedive, it promised to have everything a young family could want--playgrounds, a daycare, lots of room for the little ones to run around and explore, ocean views and plenty of other young families. Now only a handful of completed and occupied houses stood. The rest were in various stages of development and stood abandoned. Patrick and Jennifer Spain had bought into the dream. They were described as the perfect loving couple, but their 'happily ever after' was cut short. Something happened in that house that transformed the fairy tale into a nightmare. It's Detective Sergeant (Mick) Kennedy's and Detective  Garda (Richie) Curran's job to find out what.  

Mick Kennedy, aka Scorcher, is a 10 year veteran to the Dublin murder squad. He loves his job and he's good at it.  While most detectives shy away from the high profile cases, Mick relishes them. He sees them as challenges and has managed to solve cases where nobody claims to have seen anything. For the past 7 of the last ten years he's had one of the top solve rates of the department. When a case dealing with the brutally attack on a family of four lands in Mick's lap, he sets out to solve it with a detective in training in tow. Three of the family members are dead with the fourth one's life hanging in the balance. As Mick states, "this case should have gone like clockwork. It should have ended up in the textbooks as a shining example of how to get everything right. By every rule in the book, this should have been a dream case." Sometimes, however, things don't go the way they should. That's the funny thing about life. Sometimes it's unpredictable and uncontrollable...

__________________________ 

This is the fourth book in the Dublin Murder Squad series and it could easily be labeled as a standalone. None of the main characters from the previous books appear in this one, but there is a link to 'Faithful Place'. In 'Faithful Place', Mick is part of the 'calvary' who comes to Frank Mackie's aid investigating Rose Daly's murder. Frank and Mick went to cop college together and Frank is the one who gave Mick the nickname Scorcher. If you'd like to refresh your memory, check out chapter 6 of Faithful Place.

By all accounts Jenny and Pat Spain were a happy couple. Sweethearts since the age of 16. When a murder like this happens, where the house is locked up tight with alarm system in place, it's usually the survivor the police first look to as a potential suspect, but Jenny had wounds she couldn't have inflicted herself. The second person they typically look at as a suspect is the spouse, but at the crime screen the detectives make a significant discovery. A bloody shoe print is found that doesn't match any of the crew working the murder or the victims. Now Mick and Richie will try to work their brand of magic and deconstruct what happened and catch a killer.

Ms. French once again creates a mystery that has you truly bonding with the main character and itching to know what happened. I love how Ms. French creates characters and situations that are so true to life you'd have no problem believing she'd fashioned them after real life people and events. One of the nice things Ms. French does in this book is have a secondary story that slowly gets divulged as the main story progresses. It gives us a better insight into Mick.

At one time, Broken Harbor held only fond memories for Mick. That was before his mother killed herself. As Mick slowly solves what happened to the Spains, memories of the two weeks leading to his mother's death haunt him. We slowly learn what happened to his mother, and see how it affected and molded him into the detective he's become. I believe the experience with his mother left him wanting to make sure people put the patterns of other tragedies together correctly, because people need to know what happened. Additionally, I believe he wanted to prove to himself things happened for a reason.

My favorite quote:
"Over time, the ghosts of things that happened start to turn distant; once they've cut you a couple of million times, their edges blunt on your scar tissue, they wear thin. The ones that slice like razors forever are the ghosts of things that never got the chance to happen." 

Overall, I gave this one 4 out of 5 roses. This book contains plenty of drama, mystery, twists and turns. It got a touch slow in he middle, but the ending picked up the pace and included things I couldn't have foreseen. If you think you know what happened, think again. Every time I thought I had it figured out, a new piece of information came to light. Ms. French is one of my favorite mystery writers for good reason and this book is an example of why.

Order of the Series: