Review: Gone for Good by Joanna Schaffhausen

Author: Joanna Schaffhausen
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Publication Date: August 2021

The Lovelorn Killer murdered seven women, ritually binding them and leaving them for dead before penning them gruesome love letters in the local papers. Then he disappeared, and after twenty years with no trace of him, many believe that he's gone for good.

Not Grace Harper. A grocery store manager by day, at night Grace uses her snooping skills as part of an amateur sleuth group. She believes the Lovelorn Killer is still living in the same neighborhoods that he hunted in, and if she can figure out how he selected his victims, she will have the key to his identity.

Detective Annalisa Vega lost someone she loved to the killer. Now she's at a murder scene with the worst kind of déjà vu: Grace Harper lies bound and dead on the floor, surrounded by clues to the biggest murder case that Chicago homicide never solved. Annalisa has the chance to make it right and to heal her family, but first, she has to figure out what Grace knew―how to see a killer who may be standing right in front of you. This means tracing his steps back to her childhood, peering into dark corners she hadn't acknowledged before, and learning that despite everything the killer took, she has still so much more to lose. 

Gone for Good is the fist in a new series featuring Detective Annalisa Vega.  When she is called to the scene of a murder, she realizes it is like a series of murders that she is personally tied to in her past.  The murder victim was a part of a true crime group and was investigating those murders.  It seems the killer is back and ready to start killing again.

I have mixed feelings about this book.  On the one hand, I did like the mystery.  I did figure out who the killer was about halfway into the book.   I didn't call the twist at the end though.  I wasn't a fan of the ending.  I guess it was realistic, but I still didn't love it.  What I did really like about the book was the main character.  Annalisa is a character I would definitely love to read more about.  I liked her ethics and willingness to do the right thing.  I also liked the banter she had with her ex-husband, who is also her partner.  I would recommend this one.  Even though I didn't love the ending, it was still an enjoyable read.  I will probably read the next book to see what happens in the aftermath of this book.

Review: All the Best Lies by Joanna Schaffhausen

Author: Joanna Schaffhausen
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Publication Date: February 2020

FBI agent Reed Markham is haunted by one painful unsolved mystery: who murdered his mother? Camilla was brutally stabbed to death more than forty years ago while baby Reed lay in his crib mere steps away. The trail went so cold that the Las Vegas Police Department has given up hope of solving the case. But then a shattering family secret changes everything Reed knows about his origins, his murdered mother, and his powerful adoptive father, state senator Angus Markham. Now Reed has to wonder if his mother's killer is uncomfortably close to home.

Unable to trust his family with the details of his personal investigation, Reed enlists his friend, suspended cop Ellery Hathaway, to join his quest in Vegas. Ellery has experience with both troubled families and diabolical murderers, having narrowly escaped from each of them. She's eager to skip town, too, because her own father, who abandoned her years ago, is suddenly desperate to get back in contact. He also has a secret that could change her life forever, if Ellery will let him close enough to hear it.

Far from home and relying only on each other, Reed and Ellery discover young Camilla had snared the attention of dangerous men, any of whom might have wanted to shut her up for good. They start tracing his twisted family history, knowing the path leads back to a vicious killer—one who has been hiding in plain sight for forty years and isn't about to give up now.

All the Best Lies is the third book featuring Officer Ellery Hathaway and FBI agent Reed Markham.  This one picks up fairly soon after the events of the second book.  Reed has gone back to Vegas to try to solve his mother's cold case murder.  Ellery, who is on suspension from the force, follows him to give help where she can.

This was another great addition to the series.  The mystery of who killed Reed's mother was complex and kept me guessing. This one is kind of hard to talk about because there are a quite a few secrets and truths revealed about both Reed and Ellery.  There is one toward the end that I loved.  I won't spoil it for you.  The couple get a lot closer in this book.  I have loved watching Ellery slowly begin to trust Reed over this series.  I can't wait to see how their relationship progresses in the next book.  This is such a well written series and one I highly recommend.

Review: No Mercy by Joanna Schaffhausen

Author:Joanna Schaffhausen
publisher: Minatour Books
Date of publication: January 2019

Police officer Ellery Hathaway is on involuntary leave from her job because she shot a murderer in cold blood and refuses to apologize for it. Forced into group therapy for victims of violent crime, Ellery immediately finds higher priorities than “getting in touch with her feelings.”

For one, she suspects a fellow group member may have helped to convict the wrong man for a deadly arson incident years ago. For another, Ellery finds herself in the desperate clutches of a woman who survived a brutal rape. He is still out there, this man with the Spider-Man-like ability to climb through bedroom windows, and his victim beseeches Ellery for help in capturing her attacker.

Ellery seeks advice from her friend, FBI profiler Reed Markham, who liberated her from a killer’s closet when she was a child. Reed remains drawn to this unpredictable woman, the one he rescued but couldn’t quite save. The trouble is, Reed is up for a potential big promotion, and his boss has just one condition for the new job—stay away from Ellery. Ellery ignores all the warnings. Instead, she starts digging around in everyone’s past but her own—a move that, at best, could put her out of work permanently, and at worst, could put her in the city morgue.

No Mercy is the followup book to The Vanishing Season.  Once again we follow Ellery and her FBI colleague Reed as they try to solve a serial rape case.  This one takes place in a different setting than the first.  When the book opens, Ellery has been living in Boston and has been attending group therapy in an effort to get her police job back.  There she stumbles on a couple of mysteries and enlists Reed to help her. I enjoyed this follow up.  Since there was more than one mystery to be solved, it had a steady pace and keep me engaged.  It can be read as a stand alone, however, you will be spoiled a bit for the first book if you read this one first.  

What I liked most about the book was the changing and growing friendship between Ellery and Reed.  They are no longer "the victim and the rescuer", but finally equals.  There is a hint that there could be more, but I'm not sure how I feel about their relationship going any further than friendship.  The book ends on a semi-cliffhanger that potentially sets things up for a next book.  I hope there will  be further adventures with these two characters and I look forward to reading it.

Review: The Vanishing Season by Joanna Schaffhausen

Author: Joanna Schaffhausen 
Publisher: Minatour Books
Date of publication: December 2017

Ellery Hathaway knows a thing or two about serial killers, but not through her police training. She's an officer in sleepy Woodbury, MA, where a bicycle theft still makes the newspapers. No one there knows she was once victim number seventeen in the grisly story of serial killer Francis Michael Coben. The only victim who lived. 

When three people disappear from her town in three years, all around her birthday—the day she was kidnapped so long ago—Ellery fears someone knows her secret. Someone very dangerous. Her superiors dismiss her concerns, but Ellery knows the vanishing season is coming and anyone could be next. She contacts the one man she knows will believe her: the FBI agent who saved her from a killer’s closet all those years ago.

Agent Reed Markham made his name and fame on the back of the Coben case, but his fortunes have since turned. His marriage is in shambles, his bosses think he's washed up, and worst of all, he blew a major investigation. When Ellery calls him, he can’t help but wonder: sure, he rescued her, but was she ever truly saved? His greatest triumph is Ellery’s waking nightmare, and now both of them are about to be sucked into the past, back to the case that made them...with a killer who can't let go.

The Vanishing Season is the first book featuring police officer Ellery Hathaway.  She is also a final girl.  She is the only girl to escape a serial killer who used to kidnap young girls. kill them and then chop off their hands.  Now, she is a cop in a small town in western Massachusetts under a different name.  She has noticed a pattern of missing people in the town, yet no one believes her.

I really enjoyed the mystery.  I guessed part of the solution, meaning the who, but not the why.  The book gets bonus points for that.  It was well written and well planned out and had me engaged from the opening scene.  The characters were engaging.  I really liked Ellery.  She came across as a genuine survivor who is just trying to make it through the day.  She has no real attachments to anyone or anything, except her dog Bump. The situation with her closet was really sad. Reed was a  great character as well.  He is the FBI agent who found Ellery years before.  Their relationship was a unique one and one I would love to read more about.  I highly recommend this one.  I will have a review fore the second book, No Mercy, coming out soon.