Did You Miss Me?

After reading Allison Brennan's books, I enjoyed this new Karen Rose book very much. For me, Karen Rose's writing style is easier to read and understand. The whole thing in the book happens in only 4 days.

Our heroine is Daphne Montgomery, Assistant State's Attorney in Baltimore. Her 20 year-old son is kidnapped in the beginning of the story, but he actually has escaped even before his mother knows about the abduction. Daphne believes it's something to do with the case she has been handling, although the reader knows from the start that it's somebody else with an old grudge against her. The hero is FBI Special Agent Joseph Carter, whose father is Daphne's son's boss. Joseph is at first looking for the boy to please his father, but in the process he encounters murders, so his boss gives him a team to protect Daphne, whom he loves.

Joseph and Daphne are side characters from previous novel 'No One Left To Tell' and it's nice to welcome back Grayson and Paige, although they have small parts here.

The reason of the culprit to terrorize Daphne turns out to be silly, but it's still a good read.

Ashes to Ashes

Kate Conlan, the main female character, is a former FBI agent who now working as a victim-witness advocate in Minneapolis. She is to take care of an eye-witness, who has claimed to have seen The Cremator's face. The Cremator has tortured and burned 2 women, and when the witness saw him, he was burning his 3rd victim, who perhaps was the daughter of Peter Bondurant, a rich and important man. The FBI's top serial killer profiler, John Quinn, is sent from Quantico to help the case. The problem comes when the young witness is either a liar - she didn't see the face, or too scared to describe him. Meanwhile, like in most fictions, the killer targets our heroine, Kate Conlan, to be his next victim.

This is Tami Hoag's first crime book I have read and I found there were too many narrations.I read many of the sentences fast without grasping its meaning, hoping to be back to the plot, back to the investigation. The killer's identity is a surprise and from the reviews I've read I know that many readers could not guess it either. I also found the killer's reason made sense, which is rare in such genre.