Beyond Reach
by Karin Slaughter
4.7 of 5.0

I feel like I just got gut-punched by Karin Slaughter. This will be a short review while I go practice some self-care and decide how to tend to my grief. In all seriousness, this was probably my favorite Slaughter novel and I think she is one amazing writer. 

I don't want to give anything away, and I would have to in order to offer a good review. That being said, the only thing I did not appreciate about the novel is Lena. I never do. She is made in to such an unlikable character that it's hard for me to root for her or even on the side of justice (when she's on it). And if I'm not mistaken her background and family history will remain a mystery since it was revealed only to the one person who we won't ever hear from again. I think. 

There were quite a few casualties here, I'm counting around a half a dozen. But the one that hurts the most - and wow did that hurt - knows it all. And really? At that moment you had to do it? Oh, Ms. Slaughter ... just ouch. And for someone like me who loves psychological thrillers and mysteries but really doesn't do well with suspense (odd), I still believe reading the books out of order would be my choice. I always knew someone would fall victim as I've read some of the books that follow in the series and I just didn't know when. So every book since that "reveal" I've been waiting for it. And I cannot imagine how I would have taken it had I not known it was coming! 

These books are just so good. If you haven't picked up Karin Slaughter yet, I recommend it. And, okay, I also recommend reading the Grant County and Will Trent series in order.

About the author from Goodreads.com:

Karin Slaughter is one of the world’s most popular and acclaimed storytellers. Published in 120 countries with more than 35 million copies sold across the globe, her eighteen novels include the Grant County and Will Trent books, as well as the Edgar-nominated Cop Town and the instant New York Times bestselling novels Pretty Girls and The Good Daughter. Slaughter is the founder of the Save the Libraries project—a nonprofit organization established to support libraries and library programing. A native of Georgia, Karin Slaughter lives in Atlanta. Her Will Trent series, Grant County series, and standalone novel Cop Town are all in development for film and television.

Facebook: Facebook.com/AuthorKarinSlaughter 

Website: http://www.karinslaughter.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/karinslaugh...

Charm City
by Laura Lippman
4.5 of 5.0

Another exciting page-turner by Laura Lippman. Her stories are just so good, the plot works perfectly, I love the characters. It's all here! And the more I read her books, the more I feel like I know Baltimore (a place I've never been). Tess Monaghan is an amazing, strong protagonist and even when I get frustrated with her stubbornness, I'm still convinced she's doing things the way she is because she wants justice in the end.

About the author from Goodreads:
Laura Lippman was a reporter for twenty years, including twelve years at The (Baltimore) Sun. She began writing novels while working fulltime and published seven books about “accidental PI” Tess Monaghan before leaving daily journalism in 2001. Her work has been awarded the Edgar ®, the Anthony, the Agatha, the Shamus, the Nero Wolfe, Gumshoe and Barry awards. She also has been nominated for other prizes in the crime fiction field, including the Hammett and the Macavity. She was the first-ever recipient of the Mayor’s Prize for Literary Excellence and the first genre writer recognized as Author of the Year by the Maryland Library Association.

Ms. Lippman grew up in Baltimore and attended city schools through ninth grade. After graduating from Wilde Lake High School in Columbia, Md., Ms. Lippman attended Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. Her other newspaper jobs included the Waco Tribune-Herald and the San Antonio Light. 

Ms. Lippman returned to Baltimore in 1989 and has lived there since. She is the daughter of Theo Lippman Jr., a Sun editorial writer who retired in 1995 but continues to freelance for several newspapers, and Madeline Mabry Lippman, a former Baltimore City school librarian. Her sister, Susan, is a local bookseller. 

Without Mercy
by Lisa Jackson
2.4 out of 5.0 stars

To me, this is one of those books that as you're reading the last 50 pages you can't believe you spent the time to read the first 600! (I'm reading large print if you're thinking my page count is off.) 

I mean come on. I'm not going to give spoilers but there were so many cheesy deaths, so many lurid characters in the book with no background and no reason to be the way they were. Let alone killers, almost-killers, etc.

And the twist was so laughable. I almost didn't see it because I had only a handful of pages left and I was willing to be done with it and call it a lesson learned. Kept reading. Got to the twist - um sort of because if you just decide someone is a killer out of the blue and just throw in the names of the people s/he killed, that is not doing the whole job.

This review on Goodreads.com

Info on the author Lisa Jackson from Goodreads:
Lisa Jackson is the number-one New York Times bestselling author of more than 85 novels, including Afraid to Die, Tell Me, You Don’t Want to Know, Running Scared, Without Mercy, Malice, and Shiver.  She is also the co-author of the Colony Series, co-written with her sister, Nancy Bush. There are over 20 million copies of Lisa Jackson’s books in print in twenty languages.  

Before she became a nationally bestselling author, Lisa Jackson was a mother struggling to keep food on the table by writing novels, hoping against hope that someone would pay her for them. Today, neck deep in murder, her books appear on The New York Times, the USA Today, and the Publishers Weekly national bestseller lists.

With over thirty bestsellers to her name, Lisa Jackson is a master of taking readers to the edge of sanity – and back – in novels that buzz with dangerous secrets and deadly passions.  She continues to be fascinated by the minds and motives of both her killers and their pursuers—the personal, the professional and downright twisted.  As she builds the puzzle of relationships, actions, clues, lies and personal histories that haunt her protagonists, she must also confront the fear and terror faced by her victims, and the harsh and enduring truth that, in the real world, terror and madness touch far too many lives and families.