Gone to Her Grave and Catch Her Death by Wendy Dranfield

Review: Gone to Her Grave by Wendy Dranfield

Detective Madison Harper is pulled away from Thanksgiving preparations when a local care worker, Terri Summers, is found dead in her home on the outskirts of Lost Creek, Colorado. Terri’s inconsolable mother can’t understand who would hurt such a kind soul who had dedicated her life to helping others. But analysis of the blood spatter at the scene indicates Terri knew her attacker, that she looked them right in the eye before her life was taken.

The awkward way Terri’s body is positioned catches Madison’s attention. Carefully moving her, she finds a bracelet—possibly a child’s—with a single red bead clenched in the woman’s fist, as if she was hiding it. It’s the lead Madison so desperately needs, but the sudden death of one of her own team sends the investigation into a tailspin.

With her coworkers crumbling around her, Madison must work day and night to trace the bracelet and crack the case. But when she’s dragged back into the disappearance of a woman and child from years ago, and finds a link to someone in her own family, can Madison stop this twisted killer before another precious life is taken? And at what cost?

Review

This still remains one of my favorite police procedural. Detective Madison is back. This time, she’s called to the scene of a homicide where a lone woman lies dead in her bed. There is an immediate suspect but this turns out not to be open and shut case that everyone expected. The case gets complicated when a cop is found deceased and the two deaths are connected.

I absolutely adore the lead detective, Madison Harper. I enjoy her background story and how it has shaped her character in this series. I ofcourse like her ‘sidekick’, Nate and how their histories are similar, yet very different. Madison’s son is another character that I liked from the get go. I enjoy how Madison works the cases and how Nate is her unofficial partner.

This was a multilayered case and the connection of all the pieces left in awe. I don’t know how the author did that. The past and present came clashing in a way that I couldn’t have predicted. Buried secrets from the past came to the surface and some of the unsolved mysteries in the series were finally solved. A lot of heartache along the way but the conclusion that we all needed though might have wanted.

This is yet another belter from Wendy Dranfield. This was yet another complex, captivating case that I enjoyed reading.

Review: Catch Her Death by Wendy Dranfield

As snow falls on the small town of Lost Creek, Colorado, a three-year-old boy is found playing quietly in his car seat, his mother, cold as ice, slumped against the steering wheel in front. Tearing herself away from reconnecting with her special agent father who abandoned her for his career, Detective Madison Harper is haunted by the fear in the boy’s sky-blue eyes, and vows to find justice for this innocent child, left motherless just days before Christmas.
Madison works around the clock on her only clue: a perfect circle of clean glass found on the car’s rear window. But she’s stopped in her tracks the moment another mother is found dead outside a church during Midnight Mass, her young boy left sucking his thumb on the frozen ground beside her. It can’t be a coincidence.
The need to spare the children might hint to the suspect being a woman, but the deeper Madison digs, the closer she gets to a serial killer her own father spent a lifetime chasing. Has the killer followed her father here? Could Madison, single mother to a son herself, be next?
As a blizzard closes in, wreaking havoc on the investigation, Madison hits the same dead ends her father did all those years ago. But when her closest friend goes missing, Madison must dive into the mind of this twisted soul and risk it all to stop another heart-shattering tragedy. But will she make it in time?

Review

This was yet another captivating, fast-paced, twisty installment in the Detective Madison Harper series. I have to admit though, it is the darkest one yet. I have met some pretty, twisted unsubs but this one was super cold, heartless and their crimes and motives were just something from a horror movie. Their modus operandi will haunt me for a while. All these made this quite a fascinating, memorable read.

A woman is found brutally murdered. There is one eye witness at the scene, a traumatized little child. The detectives can’t get much out of the child. They also don’t want to cause further trauma to an already broken child. Everyone is wondering why someone would have killed an innocent mum like that and subjected a child to such horrors. Madison’s team is equally disturbed and worried that the crimes might recur.

The case unfolds through chapters narrated by Madison, Nate, Bill Harper and the unsub. Each of the POVs was equally interesting. Madison leads the case with the tenacity that has become her signature. She leaves no stones unturned. Nate is haunted by his past and present. Bill Harper is Madison’s father, a retired FBI agent back into his daughter’s lives after 2 decades away but he has his own secrets.

This was a fast-paced, heart-pounding, engrossing case with a lot of heartbreak and jaw dropping twists along the way. I can’t wait to find out what lies ahead for the detective.