Her Final Breath (Tracy Crosswhite Series #2)

by Robert Dugoni, Emily Sutton-Smith (Read by)

Overview

Tracy Crosswhite returns in the second book in the page-turning series by New York Times bestselling author Robert Dugoni.

Homicide detective Tracy Crosswhite has returned to the police force after the sensational retrial of her sister’s killer. Still scarred from that ordeal, Tracy is pulled into an investigation that threatens to end her career, if not her life.

A serial killer known as the Cowboy is killing young women in cheap motels in North Seattle. Even after a stalker leaves a menacing message for Crosswhite, suggesting the killer or a copycat could be targeting her personally, she is charged with bringing the murderer to justice. With clues scarce and more victims dying, Tracy realizes the key to solving the murders may lie in a decade-old homicide investigation that others, including her captain, Johnny Nolasco, would prefer to keep buried. With the Cowboy on the hunt, can Tracy find the evidence to stop him, or will she become his next victim?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781501200267
Publisher:	Brilliance Audio
Publication date:	09/15/2015
Series:	Tracy Crosswhite Series , #2
Edition description:	Unabridged
Sales rank:	932,884
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 6.70(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Robert Dugoni is the critically acclaimed New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Amazon bestselling author of the Tracy Crosswhite series, which has sold more than seven million books worldwide; the David Sloane series; the Charles Jenkins series; the stand-alone novels The 7th Canon, Damage Control, The World Played Chess, and The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell, for which he won an AudioFile Earphones Award for narration; and the nonfiction exposé The Cyanide Canary, a Washington Post best book of the year. He is the recipient of the Nancy Pearl Book Award for fiction and has twice won the Friends of Mystery Spotted Owl Award for best novel. He is a two-time finalist for the International Thriller Awards and a finalist for the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction, the Silver Falchion Award for mystery, and the Mystery Writers of America Edgar Awards. His books are sold in more than twenty-five countries and have been translated into more than two dozen languages. Visit his website at www.robertdugonibooks.com.

Editorial Reviews

07/20/2015
Thriller Award–finalist Dugoni’s fast-paced sequel to 2014’s My Sister’s Grave finds Seattle homicide detective Tracy Crosswhite still struggling to come to grips with the murder of her sister and the retrial of her killer. In addition, a serial killer with a penchant for sadistic bondage is killing area strippers at an alarming rate, and a besotted stalker who believes the detective is his soul mate is getting dangerously close. With a boss who’s bent on seeing her fail as the head of the task force assigned to find the killer, Crosswhite believes the killings may be connected to a murder almost a decade earlier—except that the man convicted of that killing is still incarcerated. With the help of boyfriend attorney Dan O’Leary, she begins investigating the old case, but people in high places will do anything to stop her. Despite the somewhat predictable ending, the well-developed characters make this an entertaining albeit not exactly memorable read. Agent: Meg Ruley, Jane Rotrosen Agency. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

Amazon Best Book of the Month, Mystery & Thriller —September 2015

“[Dugoni is the] master of Seattle menace.” —The Big Thrill

“Robert Dugoni breathes life into the police procedural like never before.” —Suspense Magazine

“Absorbing…Dugoni expertly ratchets up the suspense as Crosswhite becomes a target herself.” —Seattle Times

“Crosswhite is a sympathetic, well-drawn protagonist, and her next adventure can’t come fast enough.” —Library Journal, Starred Review

“Takes the stock items and reinvents them with crafty plotting and high energy…The revelations come in a wild finale.” —Booklist

“Her Final Breath is a stunningly suspenseful exercise in terror that hits every note at the perfect pitch, further establishing Dugoni as a household name.” —Providence Journal

From the Publisher

2015-07-01
Detective Tracy Crosswhite goes after the killer who's hogtying Seattle's exotic dancers and watching them strangle themselves to death. Still raw from the retrial of the leading suspect in her long-dead sister Sarah's murder back in Cedar Grove (My Sister's Grave, 2014), Tracy has rejoined the Violent Crime Squad just in time to catch the case of Angela Schreiber, a dancer at the Pink Palace who was strangled in a hotel room she'd rented by the hour. The scene bears an uncomfortable similarity to the death scene of Nicole Hansen, a performer at Dancing Bare, whose case Tracy's boss, Capt. Johnny Nolasco, had taken from her and palmed off on Cold Cases after only a month. Tracy, who's just received a noose from an anonymous donor, soon realizes that both cases also recall the murder of Beth Stinson, a bookkeeper who was strangled with a noose nine years ago in her North Seattle home. Clearly the Violent Crime Squad is up against a serial killer. None of them wants to use that phrase to the press because of the hysteria it would incite—except for Nolasco, who repeatedly leaks inside information to TV reporter Maria Vanpelt, dubs the perp the Cowboy Killer, and does everything he can to whip up public frenzy and undermine Tracy. Dugoni pulls out all the stops. He parades a lineup of suspects that includes a rancher's son, a fly-tying expert, and a man who likes to wear cowboy boots. He has Tracy go off on an unauthorized investigation with her lover, lawyer Dan O'Leary. He shows the Cowboy Killer striking again and again. He puts Tracy squarely in the danger zone so that the only question is whether she'll be drummed off the force before she's strangled herself. The results are professional, even exhaustive, but uninspired, with the unmasking of the nondescript culprit a particular letdown. It all reads like an expansive anthology of genre scenes you've encountered a hundred times before.

Kirkus Reviews