Publisher's Weekly Review
When a Massachusetts State Police trooper shoots and kills her husband, Boston Homicide Det. D.D. Warren sets about figuring out what parts of the trooper's story are true, and, most urgently, where the trooper's missing six-year-old daughter might be. The story is told from two perspectives-the detective's and the trooper's. Kirsten Potter reads the narrative for Warren with a strong, bold voice, and Katie MacNichol creates a nicely contrasting youthful, unsure tone for Trooper Leoni, buckling under family and career pressures. Both performers take on other characters with aplomb, male and female alike, and MacNichol's efforts as a young child are especially successful. Gardner's intriguing crime story takes unexpected turns, and the pace, the suspense, and the mystery make for compelling listening. A Bantam hardcover. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
In her fifth case (Live to Tell, 2010, etc.), Sergeant Detective D.D. Warren takes on one tough mother.Tessa Leoni is smart, brave, resourceful and quirky, among other character traits that bring to mind, yes, D.D. Warren, who might well be her mirror image. For instance, Tessa believes unshakably in the doctrine of my way or get lost, convinced that her way has been sanctioned by whatever gods there may be and is consequently the only sensible way out of trouble and strife. She is as stubborn about that kind of thing as D.D. would be under similar circumstances. Tessa, a Massachusetts state trooper, and D.D., a Boston homicide cop, both view law enforcement with high seriousness. In fact, if asked to furnish a list prioritizing life-callings, it's a no-brainer that both women would rank only one item before it: motherhood, which might, curiously enough, bear directly on the instant hostility that newly pregnant D.D. feels for Tessa on first meeting her. This takes place in Tessa's kitchen, where her husband has only recently lain dead, three bullets in his chest. No mystery how they got there. She fired them, Tessa explains, and one look at the severe bruising of her facea broken cheekbone among other injuriestestifies in her behalf: A battered wife has, with considerable justification, shot her abuser. But where, wonders D.D., is 6-year-old Sophie? What's happened to the daughter everyone says Tessa loves so deeply? And, most importantly, most infuriatingly, why isn't Tessa more eager to help the police search for her? Was it already too late for Sophie? And could Tessa possibly be complicit? The all but unflappable D.D. shudders: "How could a woman...How could a mother..."Takes a bit long to get where it's obviously going; still, you won't often find two such sympathetic protagonists paired, refreshingly, as antagonists.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Detective D. D. Warren of the Boston police and Massachusetts state trooper Bobby Dodge are together again, this time not as lovers but as partners in the investigation of a state trooper who shot and killed her husband. Tessa Leoni's bruised face leads to speculation that she retaliated when her husband hit her. But there's a lot that doesn't fit the model, not the least of which is the disappearance of the couple's six-year-old daughter, Sophie. Could Tessa, by all accounts an exemplary officer and an exceptionally devoted mother, have shot her husband three times in the chest and then killed her own child? If so, where is Sophie's body? Just when D. D. thinks she has it all figured out, a curious new piece of the puzzle emerges. Gardner deftly entwines the stories of the two women officers one, newly pregnant, charged with solving a strange case; the other a mother who, as it turns out, would do anything to protect her child. Having already produced a dozen successful thrillers, Gardner proves herself not only a very clever storyteller here, capable of pulling together a complicated series of events, but also a writer able to invest her characters (particularly her female ones) with emotional substance. Compelling and unexpected, this tale of mystery and maternal devotion shows Gardner at her very best. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Winner of the 2010 International Thriller Award for The Neighbor, Gardner hits an even higher mark this time and will have a national marketing campaign author tour, TV advertising, online saturation bombing, etc. to support her.--Zvirin, Stephanie Copyright 2010 Booklist
Library Journal Review
A police officer claims to have shot her husband in self-defense. But where is her six-year-old daughter? Gardner, a master of the suburban thriller, unveils the police code of silence and its psychological effects. (LJ 1/11) (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
