Rating: 3 ♥’s
Published: May 17, 2023
Genre: Mystery
Pages: 346
Description: Detective Madison Knight thought a midnight drive through the countryside would help clear her mind, but she thought wrong. Her car runs out of gas, stranding her in the middle of nowhere in pitch darkness. When she gets out to stretch her legs, the beam of her phone’s flashlight lands on a suitcase in the ditch. After she opens it, she’s sorry she did.
Tara Jackson was only twenty-one years old with her entire life ahead of her before she was stabbed to death and stuffed into a piece of luggage. Madison is determined to find her justice and soon uncovers that Tara was keeping secrets from those closest to her and suspects they may have gotten her killed. But while she’s exploring that lead, the body of another young woman is found in a sports equipment bag.
She looks just like Tara and is the same age, and Madison starts to wonder if the killer she’s after has killed before. Desperate, she turns to cold cases and missing person reports to see if she can dig up anything to further the investigation.
Madison finds eighteen-year-old Daphne Tucker, who was reported missing from the area three years ago. She’s a doppelganger to the other victims. Is the reason Daphne hasn’t been heard from because she’s dead too? And has her killer returned, hungry for more blood?
As Madison edges closer to the truth, someone is stalking her from the shadows, and she fears it just may be the twisted, demented killer she’s hunting. But can Madison outsmart him or her before she becomes the next victim?
I received this book as an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
This was my first Detective Madison Knight series that I have actually read, there are small details that I am behind on, but nothing that made it to where I couldn’t read this as a stand-alone. The only thing that might have been different by not having read the other parts of the series is connecting with the characters. I don’t know the background of Madison well enough to know if that is why she is the way she is. She felt slightly abrupt, and I couldn’t get behind her. However, if I had more background on her I think it could have been different. I am used to partners having some fun banter and her and her partner had a few times they did, but otherwise it felt like they didn’t agree on a lot. It will be interesting to see as the series continues with the changes coming how their relationship will change.
I thought the story was good and it was interesting to have some chapters from the killer’s view and get a little more insight into what they were like. There were definitely some gory details, which sometimes gave me chills thinking about it! Not a lot of mystery/thriller books can give me chills, so I liked that this one did. I didn’t really guess who the killer was, because we don’t have much background on him, so it was nice to kind of see how the story progressed and who they thought the killer might be, and who it ended up being. The writing had a nice flow and it moved along at a good pace. There was a surprise at the end that I was not expecting on who also was somewhat involved in the murders, which I always like when a mystery can surprise me.
Overall I think this was a fun book and it makes me want to go back and check out some of the first ones in the series to get more of a background on Madison and the rest of the characters.
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