Last Words: A Novel of Suspense

I am a hugh fan of Mariah Stewart and she continues to amaze with her twisted plots and real life characters.

Twisted story of suspense. A serial killer is killing women in an exceptionally gruesome way. He tortures and plays with them first. He then leaves them wrapped in plastic for the law to find. The FBI is brought in and the killer steps it up by taunting the cops by leaving bodies close to their homes and lives. I knew by about the end of the second chapter who the bad guy was. It was frustrating to see the characters play so dumb to the clues I obviously figured out. Good book but very dark with lots of death. Not for those with a weak stomach. One of the better books I've read this month.

Mariah Stewart is one of the best writers out there, and I love the ideas of her trilogies, which tie together but also work as stand-alones, so you don't feel as if you've missed something by not reading the previous books. This one wasn't as good as the first in this trilogy, mainly because I thought the culprit's identity was obvious right from the beginning. But regardless, the book is still a page-turner that you won't be able to put down until it's finished.

Mariah Stewart gives us the second of the tales of the Shields family. Mia is the sister of Brenden who murdered Dylan in one of her previous novels. She has been unable to conquor the feeling that she should have known what was going on and stopped the murders. Her family has been FBI for many yrs and her father and his brother have several children in the FBI. Mia Shields is the only daughter in a family of five, her other four brothers are FBI also. Now she is living in Conner's house in the country. Conner is her cousin and the brother of Dylan who was murdered by her own brother. Her inability to deal with the stresses caused by the murder have pushed her to the brink of burn-out. Now she is coming off two horrible cases, and she thinks nothing could be as bad as those, however, the murderer killing young women in St. Dennis, Maryland comes very close. Gabrial Beck, the chief of police, of St. Dennis, has asked the bureau for help and Mia is not quite what he expected. Beck's father was the previous chief and helps part-time now. The first murder is not in his town but the next girl he finds himself, the killer has placed her body encased in plastic in the back seat of his car. Both he and Mia realize this is no beginner and that there has to be a trail of bodies somewhere. As the bodies mount the evidence of a local killer emerges. Although there is a romance in the book it does not take away from the horror of the way the victims are killed. I very much enjoyed this book and so far each of her novels has been a keeper.

On Maryland's Eastern Shore, St. Dennis chief of police Gabriel Beck goes to his car only to find someone has left him with a horrific present. A naked Jane Doe mummified in plastic wrap lies in his backseat; inside the wrapping is a tape recording of the victim's last words. When more corpses are found cocooned in the same way in the area, the FBI sends agent Mia Shields, who is loaded down with guilt having failed to recognize a close to home killer, to help investigate. Gabriel reluctantly agrees with Mia's plan for her to be the bait to catch a serial killer. The second Shields FBI tale (see LAST LOOK) is an exhilarating police procedural that grips the audience with the first murder and never slows down until the final confrontation. Gabriel and Mia are a strong combination as both believes the serial killer is a local; their investigation enables the audience to see closely into the lives of a small Maryland eastern Shore community, but cannot find a viable motive, which leads to Mia becoming bait. Although the motive seems weak, fans of Mariah Stewart's delightful romantic suspense thrillers will look forward to the LAST WORD in her Shields trilogy, LAST BREATH. Harriet Klausner