REVIEW: Unsub by Meg Gardiner

 

I don't know why I hadn't heard about this book previously, but I hadn't. I'm glad that I got here late to the party though.

Unsub, in this context, is shorthand for unidentified subject.  This novel is about a cold case involving a serial killer known colloquially as The Prophet, and he was terrorizing the San Francisco Bay area when our heroine, Caitlyn Hendrix was a child.  The Prophet seems to have been inspired by the Zodiac Killer. Caitlyn's attachment to the case seems to be genetic - her father, Mack, was the original detective investigating the Prophet killings. Caitlyn, in the present day, is also a police officer and is roped into investigating the case. Bodies have started turning up again that bear the marking of the Prophet, including the almost ritualistic markings on the bodies. Caitlyn seeks help from her father, but he's hesitant to assist because of the mental anguish that the case originally caused him. 

I loved this book and found much to enjoy about it - it moved very, very fast and hooked me right from the beginning. Granted, I enjoy serial killers and cold cases so I would have been very surprised if I hadn't enjoyed the subject matter. It was very easy to empathize with Caitlyn and her co-workers, who were desperate to solve these crimes - it was very much like I was with them as they were trying to figure things out. The characters were not flat and were strong, realistic characters.  It would have been so easy to have them be flat, but they were not.

I definitely look forward to the next books in the series and reading more of Gardiner's novels.