Mysterious Reviews, mysteries reviewed by the Hidden Staircase Mystery Books, has written a review of Dead Connection by Alafair Burke. For our blog readers, we are printing it first here in advance of its publication on our website.
Dead Connection by Alafair Burke
An Ellie Hatcher Mystery
Henry Holt (Hardcover)
ISBN-10: 0-8050-7785-5 (0805077855)
ISBN-13: 978-0-8050-7785-8 (9780805077858)
Publication Date: July 2007
List Price: $19.95
Synopsis (from the publisher): When two young women are murdered on the streets of New York, exactly one year apart, Detective Ellie Hatcher is called up for a special assignment on the homicide task force. The killer has left behind a clue connecting the two cases to First Date, a popular online dating service, and Flann McIlroy, an eccentric, publicity-seeking homicide detective, is convinced that only Ellie can help him pursue his terrifying theory: someone is using the lure of the Internet and the promise of love to launch a killing spree against the women of New York City.
To catch the killer, Ellie must enter a high-tech world of stolen identities where no one is who they appear to be. And for her, the investigation quickly becomes personal: she fits the profile of the victims, and she knows firsthand what pursuing a sociopath can do to a cop—back home in Wichita, Kansas, her father lost his life trying to catch a notorious serial murderer.
When the First Date killer begins to mimic the monster who destroyed her father, Ellie knows the game has become personal for him, too. Both hunter and prey, she must find the killer before he claims his next victim—who could very well be her.
Review: Alafair Burke introduces NYPD rookie detective Ellie Hatcher on the trail of an internet serial killer in Dead Connection.
To her surprise and delight, Ellie has been recruited to the Homicide Division by Detective Flann McIlroy to work with him on two murders that share some striking similarities. The slaying of Carolyn Hunter took place just one year to the day before the killing of Amy Davis. Both young women were in their thirties, beautiful, and well-educated with a brilliant future ahead of them. Both victims were shot twice in the back of their head. And both were members of an online dating service, FirstDate.com. There was a note left on Amy’s body by the killer admitting to the murders and promising many more to come. Like his victims, he, too, used the Internet, logged on to FirstDate.com, provided fake names and bogus e-mail identities, and used stolen credit cards to pay for the service. He enticed the women he found attractive with an altered photo of himself, lies about himself, and promises of love. Ellie puts herself in this dark, forbidding world of crime on the Internet knowing it is her duty to unearth the killer before he finds and kills her.
This fast-paced thriller is exciting from start to finish. Burke has created a credible character in Ellie Hatcher, the small town daughter of a slain cop whose ambition took her to New York where she worked diligently to prove her mettle and is ultimately put on a high-profile case. The sophisticated plot in Dead Connection and Ellie's role in the investigation (which eerily begins to resemble the case that resulted in the death of her father) together provide a promising introduction to this new series.
Special thanks to guest reviewer Betty of The Betz Review for contributing her review of Dead Connection and to FSB Associates for providing an ARC of the book for this review.
Review Copyright © 2007 — Hidden Staircase Mystery Books — All Rights Reserved.
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