Weekend Book Club: Live to Tell

Lisa Gardner is one of few authors guaranteed to make me lose sleep (as in I can't put her book down.)

Live to Tell is book 4 in the D.D. Warren series and another ripping good yarn.

Here's the blurb:

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.

I enjoyed the changing POVs in this one, allowed me to really get inside the heads of the 3 protagonists: tough female cop D.D. Warren, psychologically scarred paediatric psych nurse Danielle and mother of a special needs kid, Victoria.

I challenge any parent to read this book and not be moved.

You'll want to go and hug your kids more than usual throughout.

Lisa Gardner's thorough research is mind-blowing and her books shine because of it.

I could hardly put this one down, a stellar five star read, until the end where the villain's motivation becomes tangled and the reader is left unsure what really drove him to commit such acts of mind-blowing violence. It pained me to take off a star but the ending detracted from an otherwise stirling story.

What are you reading this week?