Review: Girl Missing

Girl Missing by Tess Gerritsen

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



Book Info: Genre: Thriller/Mystery/Romantic Suspense
Reading Level: Adult
Recommended for: Fans of suspense/thrillers with romance
Trigger Warnings: murder; drug use, abuse, and overdose

My Thoughts: I had a huge problem with a big section of the story, in which Kat takes Adam all over the morgue, shuffles through the corpses, and through the paperwork. This is just not done, even with a Jane Doe. There are also a lot of ridiculous redundancies like “rose/stood to his/her feet” which was driving me crazy, since I was hearing them and couldn't skip over them with my eyes like I do when I'm reading. I was also annoyed by the romance-novel conventions of the main characters, such as them not being able to talk without arguing for no apparent reason, and the constant self-denigration of the heroine, putting herself down, refusing to accept that the hero could possibly truly want anything to do with her... Then she runs away and is angry that he doesn't follow? “Go away I need you.” GAH! These sorts of things make me absolutely crazy. To make matters worse, Ed is an annoying character; I mean, what kind of guy “grins” when he sees his ex-wife has almost had her throat slit? What a jerk!

Then to aggravate things more, the women reading the book was all over the place with accents. I think this is supposed to be set in Massachusetts, but one guy sounded like he was from Chicago, another sounded like she was Minnesotan, and not a single one sounded like they were from Boston. Sometimes the accent would run over into the narrative instead of staying with the dialogue. This was all very distracting, which is a major reason I don't like to listen to audio books unless I know the reader and know they are good at it.

But I did like Thomas (Adam's butler) a lot, even though he was a minor character. His unflappable demeanor and dry sarcasm was a breath of fresh air. I was surprised by the denouement; I had no idea where the whole thing was going, so it was nicely intricate and lots of great surprises. Not a bad book; I might have enjoyed it more if I'd read it myself. Would not recommend the audio book version.

Disclosure: I received an Audio CD edition of this novel from the Amazon Vine program in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Synopsis: THE FIRST BODY IS A MYSTERY. She's young. She's beautiful. her corpse, laid out in the office of Boston medical examiner Kat Novak, betrays no secrets—except for a matchbook clutched in one stiff hand, seven numbers scrawled inside.

THE NEXT BODY IS A WARNING. When a second victim is discovered, Kat begins to fear that a serial killer is stalking the streets. The police are skeptical. The mayor won't listen. And Kat's chief suspect is one of the town's most prominent citizens.

THE FINAL BODY . . . MIGHT BE HERS. With the death toll rising, Kat races to expose a deadly predator who is closer than she ever dreamt. And every move she makes could be her very last.



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