Book Review – Last Breath by Robert Bryndza

Here are my reviews of the first three books in this series.

Book One: The Girl in the Ice
Book Two: The Night Stalker
Book Three: Dark Water

Goodreads Synopsis:

When the tortured body of a young woman is found in a dumpster, her eyes swollen shut and her clothes soaked with blood, Detective Erika Foster is one of the first at the crime scene. The trouble is, this time, it’s not her case.

While she fights to secure her place on the investigation team, Erika can’t help but get involved and quickly finds a link to the unsolved murder of a woman four months earlier. Dumped in a similar location, both women have identical wounds – a fatal incision to their femoral artery.

Stalking his victims online, the killer is preying on young pretty women using a fake identity. How will Erika catch a murderer who doesn’t seem to exist?

Then another girl is abducted while waiting for a date. Erika and her team must get to her before she becomes another dead victim, and, come face to face with a terrifyingly sadistic individual.

My Opinion:

This is another great book in the Detective Erika Foster series. I really don’t think Robert Bryndza could write a bad book if he tried.

Erika’s stubborn attitude has resulted in her being stuck behind a desk pushing paperwork. She wants nothing more than to be out in the field solving crimes. One evening she found herself in the right place at the right time, putting her on the front line of an active crime scene, only it was not her case to work. Erika becomes obsessed with this case and runs across a cold case with enough similarities that she feels they could be related.

After once again being turned down for a transfer, Erika decides it’s time to swallow her pride and apologize to her biggest enemy in hopes of working with the lead detective of the crime scene she so badly wants to be a part of.

I think this quite clearly shows Erika’s heart:

She cared deeply about the victims, and like so many of the cases she had worked on over the years, it was not only the terrible circumstances of the victims’ deaths which haunted her, it was the lives that had been snuffed out prematurely. Young women with so much life left to live: careers, babies, holidays, and all those joys now denied them.

This story was a little different than the previous three, where we see glimpses of the “bad guy”. In this story we have full disclosure of the “bad guy”. Where he lives, works, his mindset, and so on. He relies heavily on social media to find and lure his victims. It’s a good, eye-opening reminder of the use of social media. Social media can be a great way to keep in touch and socialize, but we must never forget there is a potential downside, too.

“If a stranger came up to you on the street and wanted to know where you were going next, or what kind of film you like, if you’re married or single, where you went to school, or where you work, you’d be a bit freaked out… The same if they wanted to have your phone for a few minutes to scroll through the photos. But the same people blithely stick it all online for everyone to see.”

The first part of this book was a bit slow for me, but once I reached the halfway point the tension really started to pick up and I couldn’t read fast enough to find out how it was all going to end.

My Rating: 4.5/5

Genre: Mystery

Series: Detective Erika Foster, #4

Publisher: Bookouture

 Publication Date: 4/12/2017

Pages: 362 (Kindle)

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Happy Reading!