By Kelly Bridgewater
Dr. Emily Hartford is back in Chicago, ready to
move forward and leave the past behind, until an unexpected request for help
sends her deep into an investigation -- and into the path of a killer.
Seventeen months after the Parkman case, Dr.
Hartford has returned to Chicago to finish her surgical residency. But when she
is contacted out of the blue by Solange McClelland, the only survivor of a
decade-old triple homicide, Emily is compelled to dig deeper. She doesn’t know
the details of the event but remembers it as one of the few cases her deceased
father never solved.
On her thirtieth birthday, Solange opens a
long-forgotten safe-deposit box and is entirely baffled by what she finds.
Inside are not only painful reminders of a once-happy youth but almost four
million dollars -- enough to pursue and finally solve the mystery of who
brutally murdered her family. It’s been over ten years, and Solange has built a
new life in Detroit with her husband, Joseph. But there are certain disturbing
questions about her past that she is determined to answer. So she reaches out
to the only one who might know something about her family’s deaths and their
possibly erroneous death certificates -- Dr. Hartford, the daughter of
Freeport’s former medical examiner.
Finding it impossible to believe that her
scrupulous father made a mistake, Emily joins Solange’s pursuit of the truth,
and as subzero temperatures blanket snow-covered Michigan, the two women pursue
justice in two very different ways. But lurking nearby in the frigid cold is a
crafty, unrepentant killer, determined to finish what he started long ago.
My Thoughts:
Last One Alive
by Jennifer Graeser Dornbush has plenty of thrills and clue hunting for the
biggest fans of suspense novels. As for the plot, the concept of being the last
one alive when your whole family has been killed has been done before. Dornbush
does a wonderful job at inviting the readers into Dr. Emily Hartford’s internal
dialogue as she struggles with her career choices, relationships, and trying to
solve the current mystery. Since this is the third novel with Dr. Hartford, readers
will become more familiar with her personality, her work ethic, and her
background. As a word of caution, there are a couple of cuss words in the story
and Dornbush does have the characters have sex even though they are not married
or even in a relationship. It is one sentence, so readers do not have to worry
that they will see anything, but some readers might not want to follow a
character that does that type of thing. As for the climactic moment, it felt
like a little bit of a letdown. I wanted more. I wanted more explanation of
some of the clues that were given. Overall, Last One Alive by Jennifer
Graeser Dornbush is suspenseful enough to keep the readers trying to figure out who the
villain is with a familiar character.
I received a complimentary copy of Last One
Alive by Jennifer Graeser Dornbush from Blackstone Publishing, but the
opinions stated are all my own.
My Rating:
4
out of 5 stars
Purchase Last One Alive
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