Dead Connection

ISBN 10: 1423343867 ISBN 13: 9781423343868

Synopsis

When two young women are murdered on the streets of New York, exactly one year apart, Detective Ellie Hatcher is called up for a special assignment on the homicide task force. The killer has left behind a clue connecting the two cases to FirstDate.com, a popular online dating service, and Flann McIlroy, an eccentric, publicity-seeking homicide detective, is convinced that only Ellie can help him pursue his terrifying theory: someone is using the lure of the internet and the promise of love to launch a killing spree against the women of New York City.To catch the killer, Ellie must enter a high-tech world of stolen identities where no one is who they appear to be. And for her, the investigation quickly becomes personal. She fits the profile of the victims, and she knows firsthand what pursuing a sociopath can do to a cop - back home in Wichita, Kansas, her own father lost his life trying to catch a notorious serial murderer. When the FirstDate killer begins to mimic the monster who destroyed her father, Ellie knows the game has become personal for him, too. Both hunter and prey, she knows her only choice is to find the killer before he claims his next victim - who could very well be Ellie herself.

About this title

Review

In the world of books, nepotism can only take you so far. Jesse Kellerman has needed a couple of books to prove that he’s not being published just because he’s the son of Faye and Jonathan. But being the daughter of James Lee Burke -- possibly the greatest living writer of crime fiction in America -- Alafair Burke had the most challenging task of all, with a crushing load of expectation. Interestingly enough, she needed no period in which to find her feet; her Samantha Kincaid series hit the ground running, and she immediately establish her own writing identity, quirky and idiomatic – though strikingly different from her father.

Dead Connection is her first standalone novel, and it’s a corker, moving with express train velocity. Two women are murdered in New York, both having been set up for dates via an online dating service. Their murderer has left indications connecting deaths of the two women, and Detective Ellie Hatcher finds herself transferred to the homicide task force to smoke out a killer with a lethal agenda. Also involved is larger-than-life detective Flann McIlroy, a cop intoxicated by the lure of publicity (shades of James Ellroy’s LA Confidential here, rather than the work of Alafair Burke’s illustrious father). McIlroy sees Ellie as a crucial aid to nailing a man who wants to cut a bloody swathe through the lonely women of New York.

This is truly assured crime writing, crammed full of brio, and sporting two memorable protagonists.

--Barry Forshaw

Review

"Burke has good storytelling in her genes. More please." (The Guardian)

Edition details

• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1423343867
• ISBN 13: 9781423343868
• Binding: Audio CD