Last Known Victim
4/5
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Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this ebook
Captain Patti O'Shay, a by-the-books cop, is assigned to the case. But with the evidence lost to time and the elements, the heinous incident goes unsolved. The perpetrator, known only as "The Handyman," remains at large.
Two years later Patti is still haunted by her own personal tragedyher husband and fellow police captain was murdered in the post-storm chaos. But when a female victim missing her right hand is unearthed, Patti prepares to return to The Handyman investigation. She is unprepared, however, for what she finds at the crime scenethe victim's bones beside her husband's police badge.
Casting aside all the rules, Patti is fearless in her quest to find the truth because if she isn't, she could become The Handyman's last known victim.
Erica Spindler
No matter how innocent the story being relayed to me is, I can twist it into something pretty damn frightening. I've learned the real trick is not sharing these versions with those relaying the story. It tends to make people avoid me.” ~ Erica Spindler A New York Times and International bestselling author, Erica Spindler's skill for crafting engrossing plots and compelling characters has earned both critical praise and legions of fans. Published in 25 countries, her stories have been lauded as “thrill-packed page turners, white- knuckle rides and edge-of-your-seat whodunits.” Raised in Rockford, Illinois, Erica had planned on being an artist, earning a BFA from Delta State University and an MFA from the University of New Orleans in the visual arts. In June of 1982, in bed with a cold, she picked up a romance novel for relief from daytime television. She was immediately hooked, and soon decided to try to write one herself. She leaped from romance to suspense in 1996 with her novel Forbidden Fruit, and found her true calling. Her novel Bone Cold won the prestigious Daphne du Maurier Award for excellence. A Romance Writers of America Honor Roll member, she received a Kiss of Death Award for her novels Forbidden Fruit and Dead Run and was a three-time RITA® Award finalist. Publishers Weekly awarded the audio version of her novel Shocking Pink a Listen Up Award, naming it one of the best audio mystery books of 1998. Erica lives just outside New Orleans, Louisiana, with her husband and two sons and is busy at work on her next thriller.
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Reviews for Last Known Victim
26 ratings9 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This was good. I was on the edge of my seat. I was not sure who the killer was until they told me. I guessed wrong about 4 times before the truth was revealed.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A great read, though, in my opinion, not one of Erica Spindler's best. The plot was definitely interesting and kept me entertained. This is a sequel, though you could easily read this as a stand-alone and have absolutely no problem understanding the story.I didn't find the story to have any one true "main character". A family of cops are chasing a serial killer called "The Handyman". A lot of family dynamics are woven into the story, so it becomes much more than a typical serial killer novel. However, I found the story to drag a little at times. (At 522 pages, it could easily have been 100 pages shorter.) Also, I figured out who the "bad guy" was about half way through. There were a couple of good twists that had me second-guessing myself for a brief period and the end result was good enough that it didn't matter that I had guessed correctly.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I am a huge fan of Erica Spindler. If I recall right, the first book I read of hers was Fortune. I enjoyed it so much, I went to purchase every book she’d written to date. I’ve always found her to be very consistent with the quality of her writing.I was very excited about the release of her latest book, Last Known Victim. However, after reading it, I was a little disappointed. Don’t get me wrong, it was a very good book, but it just didn’t have the impact on me that some of Spindler’s other books did. I haven’t really figured out why, yet. It could have been the ending. When the killer was revealed, I wasn’t shocked. I just kinda thought, “Oh, ok.” It could have been the characters. The characters in Last Known Victim were brought back from See Jane Die and Killer Takes All.Anyway, I’ll have to think on it some more. For now, I’ll just sit back and wait, patiently for Erica’s next book.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5One would think based on the way thriller writers write about them that every fourth person in the United States is a serial killer. To say that this sub-genre is overdone would be a massive understatement. Most of the ones I have read are not very good, and Last Known Victim is worse than most. Set in New Orleans, post-Katrina, the serial killer du jour is known as The Handyman. If that’s not a generic serial killer name, then I don’t know what is. Unfortunately the author put as much imagination and inventiveness to the naming of the killer as the rest of the novel. Every weak trope that is used in this sub-genre can be found here to the unbelievably unrealistic nature of the killer. I won’t spoil it, but when I found out who the killer was, I wanted to wretch. The killer was so obvious and so stereotypical that it was almost like this author was spoofing serial killer novels. Unfortunately, this isn’t a spoof. It’s just a bad novel. I would suggest staying away.Carl Alves – author of Blood Street
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Erica Spindler is in my top ten favorite/must read authors for a reason. She has more than proved herself as a talented, page turning author. Her characters are solid and interesting. Her facts are more realistic than a lot of books in the same genre. In LKV, Patti O'Shay, a captain in the New Orleans police department is out to find her husband's killer. The first clues come from an abandoned refridgerator left in Katrina's aftermath. One of my three suspects eventually became unmasked as the killer. This isn't a bad stat. I like to be kept guessing, and Spindler suceeds in that again here. I hate having to wait a year each time for a new Spindler book. If you haven't read any books by this author, I recommend you pick up some of the older ones first. Work your way through them to this one! Last Known Victim isn't a five star book like most of her others, but it still is way above the norm.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This was my first Erica Spindler book, and I think I’ve found a new author! The suspense is good, the characters are believable, and she does a great job of keeping you guessing. There’s more than one convincing red herring (I did *not* guess the bad guy!), and you’re not really sure if you can really trust Yvette until the very end. Patti wasn’t the greatest leading character — I found her to be a little wooden — but the other characters, especially Stacy and Spencer, make up for it. One thing to note: even though this isn’t technically part of a series, some of the characters have appeared in earlier Spindler novels, and there is reference to them. But I didn’t feel like I was really missing anything by reading this one first.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5This was such a 'blah' book I have trouble even giving it two stars; the characters were wooden, the writing clichéd and repetitive. Not sure if I'm interested in picking up her other books now. Suspected the killer early on, but went back and forth between that particular person and another person; ultimately, the big 'reveal' was not a surprise at all.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Another book I did not read during this month/year. What possessed me to read it I'm not sure except that i had nothing else on my personal shelf at home (that was unread) except this. Oh, and it was raining that day... I truly don't remember what my reaction was to the style of writing, as I don't actively try and guess who the evil person is. Hard as this may be to believe I actually don't care what happens, and that is why I rarely read mysteries. 2.5/5 just because that is exactly a 50% rating.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I would vote for it as it is such a beautiful novel that tackles so many real-life issues. I loved it to pieces and wish everyone would read it just once in their lives :) If you have some great stories like this one, you can publish it on Novel Star, just submit your story to hardy@novelstar.top or joye@novelstar.top