AUDIOBOOKING WITH LEAH: Into the Black Nowhere by Meg Gardiner

๏ ๏ ๏ Book Blurb ๏ ๏ ๏

Inspired by real-life serial killer Ted Bundy, an exhilarating thriller in which FBI profiler Caitlin Hendrix faces off against a charming, merciless serial killer

In southern Texas, on Saturday nights, women are disappearing. One vanishes from a movie theater. Another is ripped from her car at a stoplight. Another vanishes from her home while checking on her baby. Rookie FBI agent Caitlin Hendrix, newly assigned to the FBI's elite Behavioral Analysis Unit, fears that a serial killer is roaming the dark roads outside Austin.

Caitlin and the FBI's serial crime unit discover the first victim's body in the woods. She's laid out in a bloodstained, white baby-doll nightgown. A second victim in a white nightie lies deeper in the forest's darkness. Both bodies are surrounded by Polaroid photos, stuck in the earth like headstones. Each photo pictures a woman in a white negligee, wrists slashed, suicide-style--posed like Snow White awaiting her prince's kiss.

To track the UNSUB, Caitlin must get inside his mind. How is he selecting these women? Working with a legendary FBI profiler, Caitlin searches for a homology--that elusive point where character and action come together. She profiles a confident, meticulous killer who convinces his victims to lower their guard until he can overpower and take them in plain sight. He then reduces them to objects in a twisted fantasy--dolls for him to possess, control, and ultimately destroy. Caitlin's profile leads the FBI to focus on one man: a charismatic, successful professional who easily gains people's trust. But with only circumstantial evidence linking him to the murders, the police allow him to escape. As Saturday night approaches, Caitlin and the FBI enter a desperate game of cat and mouse, racing to capture the cunning predator before he claims more victims.

๏ ๏ ๏ My Review ๏ ๏ ๏

If I rated for the intensity of the last third of the book, this would be an easy 5 Stars...but I deducted a little for not only the somewhat meandering pace at the beginning of the book but also for the awkward sections of the story where they delved into Caitlin's personal life...they didn't feel relatable to me. Although, in the first book it worked just fine for me, maybe, it's due to the different locale???

I love a good profiling case, I find it very intriguing. I didn't know or remember any of the details of Ted Bundy's actual case, so I went into this basically blind. I did, however, google it after I finished the book, and I can say there are similarities to that case, but lots of differences too. Overall, I found the first book the best of the two, but I' m looking forward to the next book in the series.