She Treads Softly: Her Final Breath

Sunday, September 13, 2015

Her Final Breath

Her Final Breath by Robert Dugoni

Thomas & Mercer: 9/15/15
eBook review copy, 424 pages
ISBN-13: 9781503945029
#2 in the Tracy Crosswhite Series
www.robertdugoni.com

Her Final Breath by Robert Dugoni is a very highly recommended police procedural. Homicide detective Tracy Crosswhite, who we were first introduced to in My Sister's Grave, is back with the Seattle Police Department's Violent Crime Squad and on a new investigation.

When a dancer at a strip club is found strangled in a motel room, the case bears an uncanny resemblance to a previous murder of a dancer. In the previous case, Tracy's boss, Captain Johnny Nolasco, relegated it to the cold case files after only a month in an attempt to make Tracy look bad. The ongoing public outcry did nothing to help public relations. Tracy is even left a noose, which could be a message about the case or it may mean she is a personal target for someone.

Now, after this second girl turns up dead, it is clear that a serial killer is on the loose. It appears he is targeting strippers and leaving their bodies in cheap motel rooms. He has been nicknamed "The Cowboy" because of his sadistic bondage method using rope. He hogties his victims with a noose around their necks, resulting in the victims eventually strangling themselves.

Tracy is leading the task force to find the killer. Even as her team is following leads and trying to find the killer before another victim is chosen, her boss, Nolasco, is still out to see her fail. Tracy realizes that these new murders resemble one from 9 years earlier, one Nolasco and his partner handled. The suspected killer was convicted and is still incarcerated, but Tracy pulls up the file and secretly has her boyfriend, lawyer Dan O’Leary, investigate the case.

It always nice to see strong, well-written female leads and Tracy Crosswhite fits that description. Dugoni has done an excellent job with character development, bringing Tracy to life. Even more importantly, Dugoni has done an exceptional job in plot development too. Her Final Breath is a police procedural/mystery that kept me totally engaged from beginning to end and I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it. I'll be looking forward to the next Tracy Crosswhite novel.

Disclosure: My Kindle edition was courtesy of Thomas & Mercer for review purposes.

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John Updike's six rules for reviewing:

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give him enough direct quotation--at least one extended passage--of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's oeuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser.....Review the book, not the reputation.... Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end.