J.A. Konrath, Shaken

Shaken

J.A. Konrath

AmazonEncore, Feb 22 2011, $13.95

ISBN: 9781935597216

Mr. K is the most successful serial killer in history. Law enforcement believes this vicious predatory beast has murdered over two hundred victims from all walks of life as race, gender or age is irrelevant.

Retired Police Lieutenant Jacqueline "Jack" Daniels tangled with this psychopath twenty-five years ago when she worked for Chicago Police Department. She was fortunate to come out of the encounter alive. However, now she has a return engagement except Mr. K has the upper hand again as he toys with her having her bound and gagged while his next victim is stuffed in a nearby locker. As she looks back over her quarter of a century in law enforcement, Jack knows she has ended the careers of some evil people, but Mr. K is the most devious and deadliest.

The latest Jack Daniels thriller is a totally different set up the previous six entries (see Fuzzy Navel and Cherry Bomb) as the heroine is a prisoner reflecting on her current predicament and looking back over her career (with amusing flashbacks from previous dangerous cases). The story line remains tense whether it is in the present or the past, but the bygone years have Jack's filter abating the danger with humor while the present means hogtied by a maniacal killer. Readers will relish this terrific thriller wondering where the cell phone rescue, if an escape occurs, will come from; as the pages tick away with a woman tortured physically and Jack mentally. All that is without the author's stunning afterward.

Harriet Klausner