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The Killing Hour

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Overview

Each time he struck, he took two victims. Day after day, he waited for the first body to be discovered--a body containing all the clues the investigators needed to find the second victim, who waited...prey to a slow but certain death. The clock ticked--salvation was possible.

Editorial Reviews

A cold case grows hot again in Gardner's sixth high-octane page-turner, a romantic thriller that features rookie FBI agent Kimberly Quincy. Kimberly is the daughter of Pierce Quincy, former FBI profiler turned PI, last seen in The Next Accident. She's a tough, troubled young woman still recovering from the murders of her mother and sister six years earlier. During week nine of the FBI Academy's 16-week training program in Virginia, she discovers the body of a young woman who looks like her late sister. Since the corpse has been dumped on a secured Marine base, the Naval Criminal Investigation Service is in charge, but determined Kimberly soon takes a leave of absence so she can team up with Michael "Mac" McCormack, visiting Georgia Bureau of Investigations Special Agent, along with her father and his partner, Rainie Connor, to prevent another death. Mac receives taunting mail and cell phone messages ("planet dying... animals weeping... rivers screaming... can't you hear it Heat kills") that lead him to suspect a serial eco-killer who last struck in Georgia three years earlier, leaving seven dead women and one survivor. Sparks fly between Kimberly and Mac as they rush to rescue the eco-killer's latest victim, Tina Krahn. Gardner offers riveting glimpses of Tina's struggle to survive in an environmentally hazardous locale. With tight plotting, an ear for forensic detail and a dash of romance, this is a truly satisfying sizzler in the tradition of Tess Gerritsen and Tami Hoag. Major ad/promo. (July 15) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information. -- PUBLISHERS WEEKLY.

Author Information

Bio of Lisa Gardner

Lisa Gardner is the New York Times bestselling author of Gone, Alone, The Killing Hour, The Survivors Club, The Next Accident, The Other Daughter, The Third Victim, and The Perfect Husband. She lives with her family in New England, where she is at work on her next novel of suspense.

Customer Reviews

  • 3 stars out of 5Okay but flawed

    Posted November 02, 2009 by P. Ryan, Upstate NY

    I wanted to like this more than I did. It kept me going, and I do recommend it if you love mystery and suspense, but she's very heavy-handed with the unnecessary research, and the funky speech tags were off-putting. As good as the story was, it felt slow to me.

Additional Info

Imprint

Bantam Books

Filesize

863.79 KB

Number of Pages

464

eBook ISBN

9780553897661

Excerpt from: The Killing Hour by Lisa Gardner

PROLOGUE

THE MAN FIRST STARTED NOTICING IT IN 1998. Two girls went out to a bar, never came home again. Deanna Wilson and Marlene Mason were the first set. Roommates at Georgia State U, nice girls by all accounts, their disappearance didn't even make the front pages of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. People disappear. Especially in a big city.

Then, of course, the police found Marlene Mason's body along Interstate 75. That got things going a bit. The fine folks of Atlanta didn't like one of their daughters being found sprawled along an interstate. Especially a white girl from a good family. Things like that shouldn't happen around here.

Besides, the Mason case was a head-scratcher. The girl was found fully clothed and with her purse intact. No sign of sexual assault, no sign of robbery. In fact, her corpse looked so damn peaceful, the passing motorist who found her thought she was sleeping. But Mason was DOA. Drug overdose, ruled the ME (though Mason's parents vehemently denied their daughter would do such a thing). Now where was her roommate

That was an ugly week in Atlanta. Everyone looking for a missing college coed while the mercury climbed to nearly a hundred degrees. Efforts started strong, then petered out. People got hot, got tired, got busy with other things. Besides, half the state figured Wilson had done it -- offed her roommate in some dispute, probably over a boy, and that was that. People watched Law & Order. They knew these things.

A couple of hikers found Wilson's body in the fall. It was all the way up in the Tallulah Gorge, nearly a hundred miles away. The body was still clad in Wilson's party clothes, right down to her three-inch heels. Not so peaceful in death this time, however. For one thing, the scavengers had gotten to her first. For another, her skull was shattered into little bits. Probably from taking a header down one of the granite cliffs. Let's just say Mother Nature had no respect for Manolo Blahnik stilettos.

Another head-scratcher. When had Wilson died Where had she been between that time and first vanishing from a downtown Atlanta bar And had she offed her roommate first Wilson's purse was recovered from the gorge. No sign of any drugs. But strangely enough, neither was there any sign of her vehicle or her car keys.

The Rabun County Sheriff's Office inherited that corpse, and the case once again faded from the news.

The man clipped a few articles. He didn't really know why. He just did.