killing hour

THE KILLING HOUR

Lisa Gardner

Orion £9.99 tbo Rel: Aug 2003

Reviewed by Maureen Carlyle


 

Reading the cover summary, I groaned. Yet another male serial killer of young women. With these reservations, I began to read, and instantly became hooked. It was something to do with the immediacy of the style, and the pace of the whole thing.

There is nothing startlingly original about the plot. In the summer heat of Atlanta, two girls have gone missing. The body of one is found close to a road. After long searching, that of the other is discovered in a remote location. These events are repeated for the following two summers. The third one is different in that GBI Special Agent Mac McCormack has realised that the body of the first girl has been left with clues to the location of the second, and they get to her before she dies of exposure. He has also been receiving phone calls from someone who claims to know the killer, but won’t divulge. For three years, the killings stop.

The scene then shifts to Quantico, Virginia. Kimberley Quincy is a recruit at the FBI Academy, determinedly undertaking a punishing training course. It is revealed that she has psychological problems – her mother and sister were murdered by a man she had introduced to them. Her feelings of guilt have made her into a distrustful loner. Her father has his own burden of guilt. At the time of his family’s murders he was an FBI agent. Kimberley’s feelings about her father are ambivalent. He has left the FBI and runs a private investigation outfit with his new partner, Rainie.

There is an overpowering heatwave, and four girls attending a summer school in Frederiksburg go for a night out. Kimberley finds the body of one of them in the grounds of the FBI Academy. The phone calls to Mac have started again, leading him to come to Virginia. He meets up with Kimberley, who has her own ideas about the new murder and has been told by the FBI not to get involved. Mac has also been warned off, but he and Kimberley carry on regardless and his theory that the new killing is linked to those in Atlanta soon seems justified. Kimberley’s father is also consulted about the case, and when it is realised that three more girls are missing Mac and Kimberley risk their careers by pursuing the investigation independently.

The pace never lets up, and the suspense is maintained by the rapid switching between various sets of characters – including the killer.

At 252 pages, this is a thoroughly satisfying read.