Can’t Wait Wednesday – ESCAPING FROM HOUDINI by Kerri Maniscalco
/36 Comments/by Suzanne
“Waiting On” Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted at Breaking the Spine, which encourages fellow bloggers to spotlight upcoming releases that we’re excited about. It is a meme that I have loved participating in for over a year now, but as Jill is no longer actively posting, from now on I’ll just be linking to Can’t Wait Wednesday, hosted by Tressa, which is a spinoff of the original WoW meme.
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My selection for this week is Escaping from Houdini by Kerri Maniscalco. When I first started this series, I wasn’t sure if I was going to like it or not. But man, I fell for it hard and fast. I adore both Audrey Rose and Thomas and can’t wait to see what they get up to in the third installment of this series. This one sounds especially intense with everyone being trapped on a ship with a killer on the loose.
ESCAPING FROM HOUDINI by Kerri Maniscalco
Publication Date: September 18, 2018
From Goodreads:
In this third installment in the #1 bestselling Stalking Jack the Ripper series, a luxurious ocean liner becomes a floating prison of scandal, madness, and horror when passengers are murdered one by one…with nowhere to run from the killer. .
Audrey Rose Wadsworth and her partner-in-crime-investigation, Thomas Cresswell, are en route to New York to help solve another blood-soaked mystery. Embarking on a week-long voyage across the Atlantic on the opulent RMS Etruria, they’re delighted to discover a traveling troupe of circus performers, fortune tellers, and a certain charismatic young escape artist entertaining the first-class passengers nightly.
But then, privileged young women begin to go missing without explanation, and a series of brutal slayings shocks the entire ship. The strange and disturbing influence of the Moonlight Carnival pervades the decks as the murders grow ever more freakish, with nowhere to escape except the unforgiving sea. It’s up to Audrey Rose and Thomas to piece together the gruesome investigation as even more passengers die before reaching their destination. But with clues to the next victim pointing to someone she loves, can Audrey Rose unravel the mystery before the killer’s horrifying finale?
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I’d love to hear what upcoming book releases you’re waiting on this Wednesday? Leave me your link in the comments below and I’ll stop by and check out your CWW selection for this week. 🙂
Top Ten Tuesday – Top 10 Books I Can’t Believe I Read
/38 Comments/by Suzanne
Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together. Top Ten Tuesday has been one of my favorite memes ever since I started blogging, so huge thanks to Jana for taking over the hosting duties!
This week’s TTT topic is Top Ten Books I Can’t Believe I Read. I imagine there are lots of different ways I could explore this topic, but looking around at my bookshelves, I’m going to go with ‘I can’t believe I read these…because they’re literally the size and weight of bricks!‘ That’s not to say they were bad reads — most of them were incredible and didn’t feel like they were anywhere near as long as they actually were, but there were a couple (I’m looking at you, Moby Dick!) that I thought I would never finish.
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TOP 10 BOOKS I CAN’T BELIEVE I READ
1. LES MISERABLES by Victor Hugo (1,463 pages)
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2. A STORM OF SWORDS by George R.R. Martin (1,177 pages)
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3. BLEAK HOUSE by Charles Dickens (1,017 pages)
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4. MOBY DICK by Herman Melville
(728 Pages, but felt like it was about 3,000 pages. Way too many chapters about whale blubber for my liking!)
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5. JOHN ADAMS by David McCullough
(751 pages – I don’t even usually read Nonfiction, much less over 700 pages of it, but this was riveting!)
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6. GONE WITH THE WIND by Margaret Mitchell
(1,037 pages – As much as I complain about romance, I still can’t believe I read and adored this one, lol.)
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8. MIDDLEMARCH by George Eliot (904 pages)
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9. THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1,072 pages)
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10. ANNA KARENINA by Leo Tolstoy (1,008 pages)
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Question: What are some books that you can’t believe you read?
Book Review: Into the Black Nowhere, An UNSUB Novel
/10 Comments/by SuzanneAlso by this author: UNSUB
Series: UNSUB #2
Published by Dutton on January 30th 2018
Genres: Thriller, Mystery
Pages: 384
Also in this series: UNSUB
Source: Netgalley
Amazon
Goodreads
FTC Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley. All opinions are my own.
MY REVIEW:
I read the first book in Meg Gardiner’s UNSUB series earlier this month and absolutely devoured it. It was a 5-star read for me that was filled with suspense, memorable characters (including a badass heroine), a disturbing yet riveting storyline, great action scenes, and just an overall fascinating look at the psychology of a serial killer. Because I enjoyed UNSUB so much, I began reading its follow-up Into the Black Nowhere with very high expectations. And thankfully, I wasn’t at all disappointed. Just like its predecessor, Into the Black Nowhere hooked me from the first page and didn’t let me go until I reached the nail biting conclusion. I think I’ve found myself a new favorite series!
As in UNSUB, Into the Black Nowhere follows Caitlyn Hendrix, only now, instead of working as a police detective in California, she has taken a job as a rookie FBI agent in the Behavioral Analysis Unit in Quantico, Virginia. Caitlyn is still adjusting to her new job and life in Virginia, as well as trying to make a long distance relationship work with Sean, whom we met in UNSUB, but ultimately she is dedicated to her career and ready to catch a predator.
Caitlyn’s team is called to a town in Southern Texas where blonde women have been disappearing – one from a movie theater, one from a car that was stopped at a traffic light, and one from her own home. Local law enforcement suspects they have a predator on their hands and so Caitlyn’s team is called in to help build a psychological profile of the UNSUB so that a suspect can hopefully be identified before any other women go missing. When the bodies of two of the women are found in the woods, dressed in white nighties with heavily made up faces and slashed wrists, it becomes clear that they are looking for a serial killer, one that was likely inspired by Ted Bundy. What’s even more disturbing is that not only has the UNSUB posed the bodies of these victims, but he has also surrounded them with Polaroid photos of other blonde women, potential victims that law enforcement hasn’t identified yet. It becomes a race against the clock for Caitlyn and her team to catch this UNSUB before he hurts anyone else.
They are quickly able to get inside of their killer’s head and build a profile of the suspect, and with the help of a phone tip, they actually think they’ve found their guy. This guy is a piece of work too. He’s arrogant, cunning, and manipulative, but is also charming enough to get almost anyone around him to let their guard down so it makes sense how he’s so easily able to accumulate so many victims. Even though Caitlyn and her team are sure they have the right guy, the problem is that all they have on him so far is a lot of circumstantial evidence and so he keeps eluding them.
It seems like it’s almost a game to him, like he thrives on this game of cat and mouse, trying to stay one step ahead of law enforcement, but then he even manages to get inside of Caitlyn’s head. He finds and exploits her weaknesses, bringing things from her past up that she had hoped would remain buried and leaving her feeling vulnerable and exposed. This of course makes her all the more determined to bring him down.
Can Caitlyn keep the UNSUB out of her head so that she can effectively do her job? And can she and her team find the evidence they need in order to stop this monster once and for all?
I’m still loving Caitlyn Hendrix in this second book. She’s just as fierce and focused on tracking down killers as she was in UNSUB, but still has that slightly vulnerable side as the killer manages to get inside of her head and make her face some demons from her past. I like for the characters I’m reading about to have those layers of complexity so they don’t just come across as cardboard cutouts, which can often happen in thrillers because the characters take a backseat to the case at hand. Not Caitlyn, she is fully-fleshed out and shows a lot of growth from the first book to the second, and even within the second.
In addition to adoring Caitlyn, I also thought her partner, Rainey, was amazing. Rainey is the other female agent on her team, and Rainey is even more of a badass than Caitlyn. Together the two of them make a formidable team and so I loved every scene that paired them together. I hope to see them work together a lot more in future books in the series.
Gardiner not only writes fantastic characters, she is also a master at writing suspense. I love following along with Caitlyn and the other agents as they uncover detail after detail about the killer and get ever closer to nailing him. I was literally on the edge of my seat watching them frantically search for any clues that could help them take him down. The added detail that he only takes his victims on Saturday added an extra layer of suspense and tension because the agents know they’re on a race against the clock and know exactly what their deadline is before another woman goes missing. The tension and sense of unease is so real in this book that I found myself looking over my own shoulder while reading. It was just that creepy.
With all of that tension and suspense building up, I guess it goes without saying that this is a fast-paced book. I read it from cover to cover in two days and found myself irritated every time I had to put the book down because I was so invested in the story.
My only real issue with Into the Black Nowhere was that rather than address the cliffhanger that we were left with at the end of UNSUB, Caitlyn and her team instead move on to a new case, and it’s one that doesn’t appear to be at all related to the case from the first book. In my mind, it does makes sense not to immediately revisit that case. Based on the way the first book ended and how soon the second book seems to follow the first, it’s probably too soon, but I’m just impatient and really want to know how that cliffhanger is going to play out!
I also would have liked a little more interaction between Caitlyn and her boyfriend, Sean. They worked the first case together and I loved their chemistry together, both personally and professionally, so I missed that this time around since their relationship was relegated to the occasional phone call. There were some hints along the way in this book, however, that lead me to believe they may end up working together on a future case, so I definitely look forward to that possibility.
Considering that I’m already anxiously awaiting the third book in this series, it’s safe to conclude that I recommend Into the Black Nowhere just as highly as I recommended UNSUB earlier this month. Meg Gardiner has blown me away with the first two installments of this series and is now on my list of auto-buy authors.
GOODREADS SYNOPSIS:
Inspired by real-life serial killer Ted Bundy, an exhilarating thriller in which 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.
About Meg Gardiner
Meg Gardiner is a bestselling, Edgar Award winning author. A former lawyer and lecturer at the University of California, she’s also a three-time Jeopardy! champion. Born in Oklahoma, she grew up in Santa Barbara, California, and lives in Austin.
China Lake won the 2009 Edgar award from the Mystery Writers of America for Best Paperback Original. The Nightmare Thief won the 2012 Audie Award for Thriller/Suspense audiobook of the year. Phantom Instinct was named an O, the Oprah magazine, “Best Books of Summer.”
Meg’s latest novel, UNSUB, has been bought for development as a major television series by CBS.
Find Meg on Facebook: Facebook.com/MegGardinerBooks Twitter: @MegGardiner1 and Instagram: @Meggardiner1.