Book Reviews by Elizabeth A. White

Bobby had been right — in official lingo, this case was a clusterfuck. – D.D. Warren

Boston Police Sergeant Detective D.D. Warren and her partner, Massachusetts State Police Detective Bobby Dodge, are called to the scene of what initially appears to be a routine domestic disturbance turned deadly. However, it quickly becomes apparent there is nothing routine about the case.

Brian Darby lies dead on the floor of his kitchen, shot three times by his wife, who happens to be a Massachusetts State Trooper. Though Trooper Tessa Leoni shows obvious signs of having been beaten, D.D. is curious as to why Leoni went straight for her service revolver instead of trying something less lethal, like her taser or baton, first.

And she’ll have to keep wondering because Leoni isn’t talking, not even to help the police locate her six-year-old daughter, Sophie, who’s missing. Why wouldn’t a mother do everything in her power to help locate their missing child, D.D. wonders, unless they had something to do with it?

And with that setup Lisa Gardner puts into motion the runaway train that is Love You More, the fifth book in the D.D. Warren series. (more…)

These things happen, though. Not all at once. But bit by bit, moment by moment, choice by choice. There are pieces of yourself that once you give away, you can never get back again. – Victoria Oliver

Live To Tell, the fourth novel by Lisa Gardner featuring Boston PD detective D. D. Warren, opens with Warren being called out to the scene of a horrific mass murder; an entire family is dead, the wife and three kids apparently killed by the husband before he shot himself in the head.

Something about the case doesn’t feel quite right to Warren, but before she can identify what it is another family is killed, also in an apparent mass murder-suicide scenario. This time, however, the autopsy is conclusive: the husband was dead before the supposed self-inflicted gunshot was fired. Someone else killed these families.

Warren’s quest to find out who really committed the brutal murders and how – if at all – they were connected leads her to a pediatric psych ward that specializes in mentally unbalanced children who’ve displayed violence toward themselves or others.

Turns out both families had a child who had spent time there. Yet, in both cases the violent child was one of the murder victims, so what other connection could there be? (more…)