Fresh faced Indiana college student Chelsea Heart is so excited to spend the final hours of her spring break in the VIP room of an elite New York City club that she remains behind when her girlfriends call it a night. The next morning, as her concerned friends anxiously pace their hotel lobby, joggers find Chelsea's body in East River Park, her wavy blond hair brutally hacked off.
NYPD Detective Ellie Hatcher catches the case and homes in on a group of privileged men who were last seen plying Chelsea with free- flowing alcohol. But before she can even gather the preliminary evidence, the gruesome murder is grabbing headlines and drawing unwanted media attention to the department. So when Ellie builds a tight case against Jake Myers, a young hedge fund manager, the department brass and the district attorney's office are elated: the case will soon be cleared, the media will tout the departments quick work, and Ellie will be a dream witness at the trial against Myers.
But Ellie has her doubts. Chelsea's murder is eerily similar to three other deaths that occurred nearly a decade ago: the victims were young, female, ad in each case, the killer had taken her hair as souvenir.
Ellie's investigation pulls her into a late-night world of exclusive clubs, conspicuous wealth, and hedonistic consumption.
And her search for truth not only pits her against her fellow cops but also places her under the watchful eye of a psychopath eager to add the prideful young female detective to his list.
-
In this second novel starring Ellie Hatcher our heroine just finished her jump into the homicide bureau, two month after the incidents of Dead Connection, clearly feeling the disapproval of her colleagues and boss who feel like she made a career jump she didn't deserve after just five years as a cop.
Still having her brother as a roomer they take on a running routine in the morning when they stumble over a fresh corpse propped against a pile of pipes, with strangulation marks around the neck, the hair hacked off and deep stabwounds on body and face, resembling the outlines of a tic-tac-toe game.
Together with her new partner, J. J. Rogan, Ellie soon finds out who the victim is, where she was and with whom. The case seems to be solved when evidence nails a Jake Myers as the last person seen with her in public.
Ellie asks herself if solving the case wasn't too easy when she answers a call from a man who's daughter has been killed years ago. The case around Chelsea Hart reminded him so much of his own daughter that he felt he had to tell this to the investigating detectives. He tells Ellie that detective Flynn McIlroy, who died in Dead Connection mentioned a few years ago that he found cases similar to his daughters case and asked him questions.
With the seed planted Ellie begins to investigate what McIlroy investigated years ago and finds cases strangely similar to the current Chelsea Hart case. Her suspect in custody is way to young to be the possible killer of these old cases.
Someone killed three girls years ago and now was triggered to do the same again and soon in becomes very clear that Ellie is the addressee and the ultimate victim for a psychopath just awaken from hibernation.
-
What I liked in Dead Connection got lost a bit in this second novel: the character development of Ellie Hatcher. She still is ambitious and smart but ultimately we didn't learn much more of her or her life but that's probably because of the short timeframe which has just passed since Ellie lost McIlroy in the first book.
The idea of the young, smart detective getting into the killer's focus isn't exactly knew to the mystery reader and the plot development is similar to the first book.
Who the killer actually is caught me of guard for the second time but that won't happen the next time. So Mrs. Burke definitely has to come up with something new in her next book otherwise it gets really boring.
However, overall the book was entertaining and finely written.
Rating:
Visit Alafair Burke.
Hardcover: 352 pages
Publisher: Harper (August 19, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0061561029
ISBN-13: 978-0061561023
No comments:
Post a Comment