Dead Run

The third outing for the Monkeewrench crew finds Grace, Annie and Sharon (Wisconsin deputy from the first book, now on loan to the FBI) traveling from Minneapolis to Green Bay, Wisconsin. Along the way their car breaks down and they stumble into a town where everyone has mysteriously vanished, and progressively more sinister developments are taking place. Unlike the first two books which were more whodunnit mysteries, this is straight up slam-bang suspense as the three women pool all their considerable resources to survive their predicament and the rest of the now-familiar characters--Minneapolis detectives Maggozzi and Rolseth, the Monkeewrench geeks, and (welcome back!) Wisconsin sheriff Mike Halloran and deputy Bonar Carlson--race to their rescue as it becomes increasingly clear that not only as something horrible happened in the isolated Wisconsin town, but sinister forces are trying to make it happen again, on a larger scale. A couple of reviews have pointed out the preposterousness of the plot, and it is one of those books that you read breathlessly and then put down and think, now waaaaiit a minute, that is kind of unbelievable--but while you are caught up in it it's totally believable, and I'm okay with spending a few hours like that. Again, the characters are what drew me in and kept me involved with the story. The development of their intertwining plotlines, like Magozzi's slowly blooming romance with Grace and Sharon's with Mike Halloran, makes this more than a routinely forgettable thriller. The idea of three women kicking ass and getting themselves out of their predicament, plus the touches of humor amid the suspense and horror, are just icing on the cake. This is another book I devoured in a day, and my only disappointment is that I now have to wait until the next book comes out to spend more time with these memorable characters! Again, highly recommended but also recommended that you read this series in order: Monkeewrench, followed by Live Bait, followed by Dead Run.

this was an unusual, awesome thrilling book. I could not put it down, it his on all 8 cylinders. A must read.

The mother daughter writing team known at P.J. Tracy have given us another nail-biting, can't-stop-reading thriller. Athough I didn't feel Live Bait was as good and the duo's first mystery: Monkeewrench, Tracy is back on fire with a superb sizzler that is hot as the Wisconsin summer where the story takes place. The whole entire colorful ensemble is back from Monkeewrench: Grace, Roadrunner, Harley, Annie, Sharon, Magozzi, and Sheriff Halloran and this time they are investigating what appears to be the disappearance of an entire town with the girls on the run for their lives. Like Monkeewrench, this one will keep you awake at nights!

P. J. Tracy first came on the scene with the tightly plotted serial killer novel MONKEEWRENCH. Tracy's sophomore effort, LIVE BAIT, although not as innovative as the first novel in the series, marked Tracy as an author to watch. Now, with DEAD RUN, Tracy offers a straight-up (but never straightforward) thriller that should propel this mother-daughter writing team into the company of the very best mystery and thriller writers. As with the earlier novels in this loosely connected series, DEAD RUN's story alternates between Minneapolis and small-town Wisconsin. The software developers known as the Monkeewrench team have volunteered their sophisticated computer programs and their considerable expertise to help police departments solve related crimes. When Sharon Mueller, a Wisconsin police deputy now working for the FBI in Minneapolis, asks Grace MacBride and Annie Belinsky of the Monkeewrench team to help her connect the dots in a series of Green Bay murders, the three women set off on a road trip through rural Wisconsin. Along the way, they find the grisly remnants of a mysterious event: an abandoned town, a quasi-military blockade, and a farm field filled with unspeakable horrors. Is this some kind of secret government experiment? Or is it the beginning of a new kind of war? Drawn into the mystery against their will, the three women soon find themselves actively involved not only in saving themselves, but also in preventing the potential deaths of thousands of other people. In the meantime, terrified by the women's disappearance, the rest of the Monkeewrench crew and law enforcement agencies in two states mobilize to find the three women before it's too late. For some, such as Detective Leo Magozzi, the motivation is as much about their personal desires as it is about professional concerns: "We're not on the job. What we really are is a couple of frantic guys chasing a couple of skirts. Saving our women. Caveman stuff." Little do these frantic guys know, though, that their women are more than capable of taking care of business, sometimes surprising even themselves. If this fast-paced, breathlessly plotted thriller has a fault, it is that it depends too much on a reader's knowledge of the earlier books in the series to fully understand and appreciate the nuances of character development and relationships explored in this third volume. Don't view this as a weakness, though; instead, use it as an excuse to pick up all three volumes in this thrilling series. --- Reviewed by Norah Piehl