Live to Tell: Novel (Detective D. D. Warren)

Gardner, Lisa

ISBN 10: 0804127247 ISBN 13: 9780804127240

Publisher: Random House, 2013

Synopsis

“A suspenseful roller-coaster ride.”—Karin Slaughter · “Lisa Gardner always delivers heart-stopping suspense.”—Harlan Coben

He knows everything about you—including the first place you’ll hide.
 
On a warm summer night in one of Boston’s working-class neighborhoods, an unthinkable crime has been committed: Four members of a family have been brutally murdered. The father—and possible suspect—now lies clinging to life in the ICU. Murder-suicide? Or something worse? Veteran police detective D. D. Warren is certain of only one thing: There’s more to this case than meets the eye.

Danielle Burton is a survivor, a dedicated nurse whose passion is to help children at a locked-down pediatric psych ward. But she remains haunted by a family tragedy that shattered her life nearly twenty-five years ago. The dark anniversary is approaching, and when D. D. Warren and her partner show up at the facility, Danielle immediately realizes: It has started again.

A devoted mother, Victoria Oliver has a hard time remembering what normalcy is like. But she will do anything to ensure that her troubled son has some semblance of a childhood. She will love him no matter what. Nurture him. Keep him safe. Protect him. Even when the threat comes from within her own house. 

The lives of these three women unfold and connect in unexpected ways, as sins from the past emerge—and stunning secrets reveal just how tightly blood ties can bind. Sometimes the most devastating crimes are the ones closest to home.
 

About this title

Review

Lisa Gardner has long been an ace practitioner of the psychological crime novel, and her skills don't desert her in her latest outing, Live To Tell.There are a host of thrillers vying for our attention at present, and the quality on offer ranges from the indifferent through the workmanlike to the genuinely inventive. Lisa Gardner has demonstrated in such books as The Other Daughter and The Perfect Husband that she’s more than capable of delivering the genuine article: thrillers which function on both the plotting and character levels, always couched in smart, well-honed prose. If Live To Tell isn’t quite vintage Gardner, it’s still an impressive piece of work – and better than most of her rivals could produce.

A savage crime has rocked a working class neighbourhood of Boston; four members of a family have been brutally murdered. The father is lying in an intensive care unit, his survival in doubt. He is the principal suspect. Female police detective DD Warren, however, is not one to take things at face value. At the same time, Danielle Burton is about to have her life thrown into turmoil; a nurse whose life is at the service of her profession, she has tentatively recovered from a devastating family tragedy of decades before – and the investigation by Warren and her partner is about the throw Danielle’s life into chaos once again. There is one more angle to the triangle: the devotion of a mother, Victoria Oliver, to her disturbed son is about to be tested to the limit.

As before, Lisa Gardener in Live To Tell has the measure of the suspense techniques she employs, tightening the screws on the lives of these three women as a grim crime is laid bare. --Barry Forshaw

Review

"A suspenseful roller-coaster ride."--Karin Slaughter

"Lisa Gardner always delivers heart-stopping suspense."--Harlan Coben

About this edition

• Publisher: Random House
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 0804127247
• ISBN 13: 9780804127240
• Binding: Audio CD