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Say Goodbye    by Lisa Gardner Amazon.com order for
Say Goodbye
by Lisa Gardner
Order:  USA  Can
Bantam, 2008 (2008)
Hardcover
* * *   Reviewed by Martina Bexte

Readers who have followed Gardner's books, and in particular those featuring FBI profiler Pierce Quincy, will already be familiar with his daughter, Kimberly Quincy, who has over her five year career, become a dedicated agent in her own right, and is already displaying as strong an obsession for her work as her retired father.

As the story begins, a pregnant Kimberly is a member of the Evidence Response Team combing through the debris of a plane crash. She is not happy about the fact that her condition bars her from certain aspects of the investigation and is only too eager to involve herself with GBI Special Agent Salvadore Martignetti's investigation into the disappearances of local prostitutes. Evidence she and Martignetti acquire points to a serial killer. However, their superiors refuse to sanction a full out investigation, so Kimberly and Sal decide to do some digging on their own. As they work to uncover leads, they begin piecing together the mindset of a psychopath - information that not only puts Kimberly and her baby at risk, but also points to a suspect whose recent kills are only the tip of the iceberg.

Gardner also does a nice job portraying Kimberly and her husband Mac's conflicted emotions over career vs. motherhood, an issue that's putting a decided strain on their marriage. Pierce and Rainie's return as secondaries in the investigation makes for a nice addition to the story. Nor will fans of Gardner's past work be disappointed with her latest chilling plot line. Her villain's proclivity for spiders, as well as his disturbing back-story - which Gardner unravels with meticulous detail - ratchets up the creep factor. Far more disturbing however, are her insights into the nature of child predators and the fact that they lurk around every corner - and now, as we are all too well aware, on the Internet. Say Goodbye is another upsetting page-turner, filled with surprising twists and turns, and with a plot ripped from today's headlines.

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