Starred review from April 25, 2016
Well-developed, multidimensional characters and an exceptionally strong plot power bestseller Ellison’s eighth Taylor Jackson novel, a prequel to 2007’s All the Pretty Girls, the series opener. When Vanderbilt University students appear to be the target of a serial killer, Nashville cop Taylor teams with FBI profiler Dr. John Baldwin to discover the killer’s identity. The killer’s victims, beautiful college students, are posed in death with herbs sprinkled across their bodies. Meanwhile, Taylor is battling her own demons as she faces a grand jury investigation into a justifiable homicide in which she killed another officer in self-defense. And John, who struggles with depression, holds himself responsible for the deaths of three of his fellow agents. The suspense remains high throughout as the police work round the clock to find the killer before he claims another victim. The characters’ humanity and the gut-wrenching problems they face in life-and-death situations put Ellison in the top rank of romantic suspense novelists. Agent: Scott Miller, Trident Media Group.
April 1, 2016
A serial killer is on the loose in Nashville and young Vanderbilt University coeds are in danger. Lt. Taylor Jackson and Dr. Samantha Owens, the medical examiner and Jackson's best friend, face a huge public relations nightmare as worried parents and the general public clamor for results. Worse, one victim is Jordan Blake, the daughter of a Texas oilman and a major university benefactor. As Jackson works with her team to hunt down the culprit, her boss asks her to partner with a troubled FBI profiler. Dr. John Baldwin--a genius at profiling when he's sober--has moved back to Tennessee from DC after an investigation went horribly awry. So now Taylor has to solve a crime and babysit a wounded colleague. VERDICT Followers of this series (Where All the Dead Lie) will relish the revelations of how Ellison's protagonists first connected. New readers of this page-turning, suspenseful thriller, will want to catch up on the author's other books.--Robin Nesbitt, Columbus Metropolitan Lib., OH
Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
May 1, 2016
Ellison offers a prequel to her popular Taylor Jackson and Samantha Owens series (What Lies Behind, 2015). Nashville police lieutenant Jackson is struggling with departmental strife after shooting one of her own detectives in self-defense. She's forced to refocus when a killer stages a Vanderbilt coed's body in the Centennial Park Parthenon. Jackson's best friend, medical examiner Owens, finds perplexing ritualistic evidence: the killer sprinkled the body with herbs, and the young woman's liver showed signs of aconite poisoning. FBI profiler John Baldwin, on self-imposed exile in Nashville, is convinced to join Taylor's team, and he and Taylor wrestle with intense attraction as they work to decipher the killer's motivation and race to find another missing Vanderbilt student. The main draw here for series fans will be the backstory provided about the popular lead characters, but the serial-killer plot itself is unremarkable.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)