To say that the case before Boston detective D.D. Warren in CATCH ME, the latest novel by Lisa Gardner, is unusual is putting it mildly. As readers will discover, the oddity of the case is merely one of the baffling and frightening complications in this seventh series entry.
While investigating the latest of what appears to be a series of vigilante-style shootings of local pedophiles, Warren is suddenly approached by Charlene Rosalind Carter Grant, who’s been hanging around the crime scene, and says she has reason to believe that she will be murdered in four days.
Grant wants Warren to handle her death investigation. Warren would love to dismiss Grant as a crackpot, but soon finds that her story is both accurate and credible. Two of Grant’s closest friends were murdered over the last two years, each killed on the same day and time: 8 p.m. Jan. 21. Grant is positive she is the next target, but refuses to go without a fight. That’s why, as she explains to Warren, she kept herself fit with boxing lessons and carries a legally registered gun that she practices with at a local target range.
Warren’s plate is full already with the pedophile killings, but as Jan. 21 approaches, she finds it almost impossible to keep her mind off Grant, particularly the abuse she suffered as a child at the hands of an abusive, mentally unstable mother, and her resulting paranoia. Then things get really complicated when Warren uncovers possible links between the pedophile shootings and Grant.
Right from the opening pages of the seemingly unrelated prologue, we know we are in for something highly unusual. But this is only a hint of what Gardner has in store. The story then unfolds through alternating first-person chapters from Grant’s POV and third-person chapters following Warren as she slowly makes her way through an endless series of revelations and complications.
Along with these two main threads, the author also includes the story of a boy who finds himself the unknowing focus of a child predator. Somehow, Gardner pulls all of these and several additional threads together, adding even more surprises along the way, as the novel heads to its unanticipated climax.
The effects of several forms of psychological imbalance seem to give Gardner free reign with her suspects, especially — but not exclusively — Grant. Credibility, as a result, is often stretched to the very limit. Yet the intensity of Gardner’s prose style and the creeping sense of threat that envelops the main characters drive the narrative forward, even through several long passages of speculative exposition.
Along the way, Gardner weaves into the story the frightening ways pedophiles use the internet to locate and connect with potential victims, and includes several stomach-churning examples of child abuse and its lingering aftermath. It’s powerful and powerfully disturbing stuff. As a new parent herself, it’s little wonder Warren’s only recourse is to frequently shut her eyes and mutter, “I hate this case.”
Gardner fans will enjoy the cameo appearances of characters from her other books, but these are by no means a disadvantage to the occasional reader or complete newcomer to the author’s body of work.
For all its complications and credibility challenges, CATCH ME is unquestionably among the darkest and finest of Gardner’s bibliography. As her devoted readers already know, that’s truly saying something. —Alan Cranis
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