Brian Freeman - Immoral (Jonathan Stride Series, Book 1)

Lieutnant Jonathan Stride is suffering from an ugly case of déjà-vu. For the second time in a year, a beautiful teenage girl has disappeared off the streets of Dultuh, Minnesota - gone without a trace, like a bitter gust off Lake Superior. The two victims couldn't be more different.
First it was Kerry McGrath, bubbly, sweet sixteen, and now, Rachel Deese, strange, sexually charged, a wild child.
The media hound Stride to catch a serial killer, and as the search carries him from the icy stillness of the northern woods to the erotic heat of Las vegas, he must decide which facts are real and which are illusions. Stride also finds his own life changed forever by the secrets he uncovered. Secrets that stretch across time in a web of lies, death, and illicit desire. Secrets that are chillingly ... immoral.

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In a time span of one year two young girls have been vanished without a trace. Pressured by public and media, Lieutenant Jonathan Stride and his partner Maggie Bei tried to solve the disappearance of Kerry McGrath in vain and face the same situation again.
But when rumors surface about Rachel's stepfather abusing his stepdaughter, the police digs into the families life, exposing evidence that that the stepfather might have killed Rachel.
Police and the District Attorney agree, that they can reach a conviction for murder without having the body.

The case seems to be solved but three years later when a body is found in the desert of Las Vegas, the past catches up with a restless Stride who never forgot the Rachel Deese case.

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Immoral is an o.k. read that won't bore you but neither will it wow you. I am certain there are a lot of readers that like the whole story but I couldn't find much that appealed to my taste.
The solution to the whole story is rather simply to guess otherwise other parts of the story wouldn't make sense at all. I was only waiting for my assumptions to be confirmed - which I was.

There is lots Mr. Freeman has to work on and probably already did in the following three novels already published.
I'll probably pick up the second book in the series soon just to figure out if things have changed. The Jonathan Stride character development in the end left room for hope and more. :-)

Rating:
Visit Brian Freeman.

Hardcover: 352 pages
Publisher: St. Martin's Minotaur; 1ST edition (August 25, 2005)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0312340427
ISBN-13: 978-0312340421