Saturday, August 9, 2008

Review: Left To Die by Lisa Jackson

Amidst an unusually bad Montana winter, a serial killer is at work near the town of Grizzly Falls. The killer "rescues" his female victims when their cars careen off of a mountain road. Most of them don't realize that their accident was caused by the killer shooting their tires out. He then carries them off to a remote cabin in the mountains and wins their trust by tending to their wounds and lulling them into trusting him. Weeks later he will leave each victim tied, naked, to a tree, to die from exposure. Nice guy.

Under intense pressure to catch the killer as the body count rises, Detectives Selena Alvarez and Regan Pescoli work the case for months. But each has her own personal issues to deal with as well. Regan is divorced with two typically parent-hating teens and a difficult ex-husband. Not to mention a tendency to escape into a superficial relationship based on sex and alcohol. Selena is the opposite, a lonely and solitary woman with no life outside of her job. Despite help from the FBI, they are no closer to catching the killer in December than they were in September when the first body was found.

When Seattle resident Jillian Rivers starts to get anonymous tips that her deceased husband, Aaron, is alive, she thinks it must be some kind of prank. He's been dead for ten years. Okay, so the body was never found and it turned out that he had bilked investors out of a half a million dollars. But still, he must be dead, right? She eventually heads to Montana to follow up on some photos she has received that look alot like Aaron. But she never makes it, her tires are shot out and her car plummets to the bottom of a steep ravine.

Jillian is rescued by Zane MacGregor and taken to his cabin where he gives her medical care. But they are trapped together by an intense blizzard, unable to contact the outside world or make their way to a populated area. She is lucky to be alive but she has read about the serial killer, doesn't her situation fit the known pattern? Should she trust her rescuer? It seems she has no choice.

This creepy thriller is fast paced with engaging characters and a plot that will keep you guessing. Though part of the story is neatly wrapped up at the end of the book, the remainder will be continued in the author's next book, Chosen to Die, due out August 2009! I'm a little irked that I will have to wait so long to find out what happens!

Order Left to Die from Amazon

9 comments:

thewriterslife said...

Wow, fantastic review! Thank you!

Kathleen Gilligan said...

That sucks you have to wait to find out what happens. And such a long time too.

Becca said...

Sounds creepy! Zombies and vampires I can handle but serial killers are the type of thing that keeps me up at night. Maybe I could read it on the train on the way to work, in broad daylight, with lots of people around. Then again, maybe not.

tashiana said...

^^^^^^^
more spam :( booo hiss

this looks so good! this review is awesome! fictional serial killers rock
i think she should trust him...it's too obvious if he's the killer
lovin the detectives with backstories

js22 said...

oh yeah, I asked my sister if this was the book with the sequel and she said yes.
I liked the book until the end when it turned out that we had to wait until the next year to read the sequel. Boo, hiss. I won't be reading the sequel though, unless I forget not to!
I was glad to read that you were none too pleased about that either.

email in blogger profile.

barbara said...

I read a lot of books, but this is one I will NEVER forget! It looks to me like her publisher told her how many pages to write, so she wrote that many pages and then handed it in. What kind of a serial killer book ends without the serial killer being caught?! I love Lisa Jackson, but I will NOT read the other half of this book when it comes out. I hated, hated, HATED that she would do this! What if this idea catches on? What if you always have to read TWO books to get to the resolution?

Ahhh - thank you. I've been SO mad at this book and at Lisa Jackson and I've needed to vent for a long time now. Whenever I see she has a new book out, I always check to make sure that it's not the other half of Left to Die.

The Tome Traveller said...

The sequel, Chosen to Die, will be published in August, 2009. You think the people who pick it up not knowing it is a sequel will be as irritated as we were at the cliffhanger?

Unknown said...

Left to Die, was a Total Rip-off!
What a waste of time, How dare an Author build us up as an advertisement for the next book!
Threw my copy out, and will NEVER buy a book of hers EVER.

Unknown said...

What a rip off.
How Dare an author write a book of advertisement for her next book.
Never, Ever buy her books.


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New Hampshire, United States
Bibliophile, Anglophile, Traveller... I have been an avid reader all of my life, since I took the Dr. Seuss Dictionary away from my Mom when I was less than a year old because I wanted to read it myself. In college, where I earned my degree in English Literature, I was often asked "What are you going to do with it?" Now I finally have the answer to that question!!! Being employed as a Flight Attendant for twenty years has given me a lot of life experience and, better still, a lot of time to read. I love to travel for fun, too.