Book Review: The Killing Hour by Lisa Gardner

Hello, Fellow Book Worms and Book Dragons!

  The amount of crime fiction that I have enjoyed this year has managed to bring me thrills and chills. And my favorite author to deliver those wonderful emotions is Lisa Gardner. Her brand of action, adventure, and crime has led me to read fourteen of her novels this year. 

  Introduced to me in Find Her, FBI Special Agent Kimberly Quincy made a huge impression on me with her cameo when she arrived on the scene to aid in the rescue of Flora Dane. She popped up again to aid Sergeant Detective D.D. Warren in Catch Me. It was not until I found a copy of Say Goodbye at a book fair did I truly realize how bad ass Kimberly Quincy and her father, FBI Profiler Pierce Quincy were. Now I venture back in time to read of Kimberly's final days in training to be an FBI agent. 

  The Killing Hour is written by Lisa Gardner, and is the fourth book in her best-selling FBI Profiler series. The paperback edition that I read was published by Bantam Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House. In it we are introduced to a young Kimberly Quincy in her final weeks of training at the FBI Academy in Virginia. Haunted by the murders of her mother and sister, she has become an island unto herself. She is quiet, studious, and has only one person at the academy that she truly converses with. And in the final days of training she has overworked her body to exhaustion. Her FBI Profiler father, Pierce Quincy, and his partner, Rainie Conner, are worried about Kimberly's physical and mental state. But the young recruit refuses to listen to the naysayers that tell her she needs to slow down.

  Meanwhile the Georgia Bureau of Investigation has sent Special Agent Mac McCormack to Quantico, Virginia. He has received alarming news that an old cold case involving murdered girls has resurfaced. Although he managed to save one of the victims, the case has tormented his every waking moment. He has begun to receive calls from a robotic voice warning him of more deaths. If the tip is real, Virginia is about to be visited by one of the deadliest serial killers in history.

  As Kimberly wades through the haze of exhaustion she stumbles (literally) upon the dead body of a young woman on the grounds of the FBI Academy. Agent McCormack asks Kimberly in aiding him in gathering evidence. He fears the bureaucratic paper work and procedure will lead to the deaths of more women. They have to act now. What the investigators do not understand is that this killer kidnaps pairs of women, with the first body left as a clue to find his second victim. If they look at the clues he leaves they may be able to save the second victim. Kimberly agrees to aid McCormack. Also in the mix is Pierce Quincy and Rainie Conner who have been hired as consultants to profile the killer. As the clues begin to confirm that this is indeed the murderer from his previous cases, a new variable enters the case that careens the quartet into unspeakable danger. 

  The Killing Hour was as twisty and crazy as any of Gardner's mysteries. She drove the narrative ahead with a sea of red herrings to really bring out the sleuth in me. I was given a front row seat in a diabolical killer's game of cat and mouse. The explosive finale was sharp and filled with peril that put or protagonists in a serious predicament. And in the face of death and destruction we were left with a raw understanding of Kimberly Quincy and how strong she would continue to be in future novels.

   Kimberly's budding relationship with her future husband, Mac, was handled very well. It was great to see their initial meeting and attraction to one another. Pierce and Rainie's story line progressed forward with the precursor to their adopting their daughter, whom we meet in book seven. They are a steady couple that have been through a lot. Gardner's ability to pause the case and focus on the needs of her protagonists made for some excellent dramatic moments. I got a real sense of true emotion displayed in her three-dimensional characters. 

  I read the Killing Hour with the excellent narration of late actress, Kate Fleming under the name Anna Fields. Her handling of all voices in this story was an added bonus to the audio book. She read with an intensity and flourish that made her presentation of Lisa Gardner's words heightened and exciting. I am always in favor of a voice-over actor that can portray a character rather than just read them. She was a wonderful choice for this series. It is sad that she is no longer with us. 

  In the end this four star read took me away and transported me to another fantastic mystery with a lot of danger and adventure. Curl up with this one on a cold night. I did. And I finished it in a day. This is one story that does not disappoint.   
   

Have fun reading this week. Let me know in the comments below what you are reading.

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