One Last Kill by Robert Dugoni
EXCERPT: ‘What’s going on?’ Gibson said. ‘This is the fourth woman we’ve found in this area in less than a year,’ Laub said. ‘And there’s speculation that it’s the same guy?’ Gibson asked. ‘The MO, strangulation,’ and the disposing of the bodies in dumpsters is consistent, but that’s not the main reason for the concern.’ ‘What is?’ Faz asked. ‘The brass is keeping this quiet for now, but the bodies were all cut in the same location, on the back of the left shoulder.’ ‘Cut?’ Gibson said. ‘Carved,’ Laub said. ‘What’s the carving?’ Faz said. ‘That remains open to debate,’ Laub said. ‘The other three, it looks like two question marks facing one another, but I don’t think that’s it.’ ‘What do you think it is?’ Laub exhaled a breath. ‘Between us? For now? To me it looks like angel’s wings.’
ABOUT ‘ONE LAST KILL’: Tracy Crosswhite is reopening the investigation into Seattle’s Route 99 serial killer. After thirteen victims, he stopped hunting and the trail went cold, stirring public outrage. Now, nearly three decades after his first kill, Tracy is expected to finally bring closure to the victims’ families and redeem the Seattle PD’s reputation. Even if it means working with her nemesis, Captain Johnny Nolasco.
Lead detective of the original task force, Nolasco dares Tracy to do what he failed to: close the case. Forming an uneasy alliance, Tracy and Nolasco revisit old leads and pursue new evidence only to unearth high-level corruption and cover-ups as dangerous as the elusive killer himself. At the risk of being exposed, such deadly and powerful forces will go to extremes to stay in the shadows.
That’s just where Tracy and Nolasco are headed—to find the twisted truth behind a killer’s motives, his disappearance, and his chilling comeback.
MY THOUGHTS: I know I have probably said this before about this series, but each book just gets better and better. I read this in a tad over twenty-four hours because I couldn’t bear to not be reading it! Everything else was shoved to one side and ignored. I loved every word!
Like a train pulling out of a station on an uphill gradient, One Last Kill slowly gathers pace until it is racing along at full speed towards a climactic ending. I loved the way Tracy uses advances in DNA technology to help solve the cold cases, and the revelations it provided in this case were stellar.
Tracy’s bosses (superiors is definitely not the right word) were there for the glory and, afraid what a series of articles on the unsolved series of murders might mean for their funding, making fools of themselves by disclosing an unproven theory as fact.
I like Tracy’s strength of character. She likes to be sure of her facts and stands up for what she believes to be right. I enjoyed seeing her and Nolasco working together on this case – they are generally about as compatible as oil and water – Dugoni did a brilliant job of describing their distrust and the uneasy truce they settled into before it moved into an easier working partnership.
The character that really stands out though, is Marilynn Edwards, wife of the ex-mayor of Seattle. She stood up for herself and for what is right and just refused to back down. Tracy admired and respected her and she caused Tracy to re-evaluate some of her own values.
Although this is a series and I do recommend you read them in order, because each book contains its own complete story it is possible to read these books as stand-alones. There are references to past cases, disputes and relationships, but not enough to affect your understanding of the storyline.
A definite recommendation.
I approached One Last Kill, #10 in the Tracy Crosswhite series, with both anticipation and trepidation. Dugoni was contracted to write ten books in this series, and here we are at #10. Are there going to be any more? I certainly hope so and there is no indication in the way this book ended that there won’t be. Fingers crossed and fervent prayers to the Book Gods.
#OneLastKill #NetGalley
THE AUTHOR: A writer turned lawyer turned writer. Robert Dugoni was born in Idaho and raised in Northern California the middle child of a family of ten siblings. Dugoni jokes that he didn’t get much of a chance to talk, so he wrote. By the seventh grade he knew he wanted to be a writer.
Dugoni wrote his way to Stanford University, receiving writing awards along the way, and majored in communications/journalism and creative writing while working as a reporter for the Stanford Daily. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa and worked briefly as a reporter in the Metro Office and the San Gabriel Valley Office of the Los Angeles Times.
DISCLOSURE: Thank you to Thomas & Mercer via NetGalley for providing a digital ARC of One Last Kill by Robert Dugoni for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.
