The 13th adrenaline-packed Robert Hunter thriller and Top Ten Sunday Times bestseller.
When a routine autopsy on what looked like a straightforward hit-and-run leads the LA Chief Medical Examiner, Dr Carolyn Hove, to discover some puzzling inconsistencies, she calls in Detective Robert Hunter of the LAPD Ultra Violent Crimes Unit. Not only did Dr Hove discover that the death wasn’t caused by a hit-and-run, but she also found indications that the victim had been severely tortured prior to death.
What no one realises is that what Dr Hove has stumbled upon is just the tip of the iceberg and it will lead Hunter and his partner, Carlos Garcia, on the trail of a twisted and clever killer who hides in plain sight. A serial killer no one even knew existed – a killer who has always operated under the radar, expertly disguising every gruesome murder as an accidental death.
But with no leads as to why the victim was targeted, the investigation comes to a standstill, until another body is discovered with an alternative cause of death.
What becomes clear is that this serial killer isn’t going to stop – unless Hunter and Garcia can get to him.
But how do you investigate a murder when you have no victims? How do you catch a killer who leaves behind no crime scene? How do you stop a ghost who no one can prove even exists?
My thoughts: Thirteen books into this dark but compelling series, I am still completely hooked. This case might be Hunter and Garcia’s strangest yet.
Because their medical examiner is brilliant, she spots a few things that prove their hit and run victim is nothing of the sort – he died from hypothermia. In Southern California, in summer. Now I have actually spent summer in Orange County, south of LA and it is hot. So, so hot. There’s just no way you could get that cold unless you were locked in a freezer. And nobody does that voluntarily.
While Hunter and Garcia are trying to figure out whodunnit and why. There’s another body that appears, again the supposed cause of death doesn’t match the evidence on the body. A body that was donated to the students at a medical school, training to be medical examiners.
Slowly, the brilliant detective duo, veterans of dozens of baffling cases, put together what links the victims and what might the killer be thinking.
Chris Carter is a brilliant writer, and was a criminal psychologist, and really knows how to build suspense and a sense of real danger, which once again Garcia and Hunter find themselves in.
This blogathon has been just tremendous to be part of and I cannot wait to see what Carter writes next.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
ramblingmads 