Say Goodbye

Rating NR Genre mystery Author Lisa Gardner Publisher Bantam

Special Agent Kimberly Quincy is surprised when she receives a late night phone call requesting her presence to interview a young woman who claims to be her informant. As a member of the FBI’s Evidence Response Team, she normally doesn’t handle violent crime directly. The supposed informant turns out to be a pregnant hooker calling herself Delilah Rose. She tells Kimberly a terrifying tale of young prostitutes who have disappeared at the hands of a john called Dinchara. There is no evidence, nor any real leads beyond Delilah’s tale other than a high school ring, but since her own mother and sister were murdered by a serial killer, Kimberly feels compelled to become involved. As Kimberly works to uncover the killer’s trail, she becomes caught in a web of rape, torture and murder with no way out.

This was an interesting and solid tale of suspense, but there were several problems for me. First, Kimberly is pregnant. Which is fine, but Gardner is overzealous in reminding her readers of this fact. On every other page Kimberly is either touching her stomach, the kid is kicking or she’s brooding about what kind of parent she’ll be and what it all means. As if this weren’t enough, any character that comes on scene mentions her condition in some capacity. It slowed the pace of the story tremendously.  

Secondly, there is too much technical jargon and unnecessary set up. The entire first chapter is about a plane crash which is supposed to show us what Kimberly does on daily basis. I found it completely irrelevant as Gardner gives us a more than adequate description of her work later on within the frame of the story. I learned more about spiders than I ever wanted to know. I realize that the killer is obsessed with spiders, but there were times I felt as though I were reading a biology report rather than a story.

Admittedly, this is the first Lisa Gardner book I have read and her style is different than what I am used to in regards to mystery/suspense. I do give her props for her extensive knowledge and I enjoyed her vibrant characters and sharp dialogue. Gardner fans will love this story but for those of you that are not, you may want to skip this.