Nine Elms (Kate Marshall Book 1)

Fifteen years ago, Kate Marshall, a young police detective in London, brought down the infamous Nine Elms serial killer, but the cost was incredibly personal and onerous. After nearly losing her life capturing him, and nearly losing the child she was carrying, she lost herself in an alcohol-fueled miasma for years. But she has found her way out of it and found a good job teaching college when she’s contacted by a couple who lost their daughter many years before. They think Kate is the one to solve her disappearance, and Kate finds herself being pulled back into the Nine Elms case. More frightening, there seems to be a copycat killer at work, and since Kate was nearly victim number five for the original, she fears she is on the list for the copycat.

Author Robert Bryndza has written a terrific page-turner with a very believable cast of characters. The good people are realistically flawed and vulnerable, and they will make readers root for them. The bad people in the book are really, really evil, but not one-dimensional. The writing is crisp, the dialogue natural, and the story is oh-so-compelling. This is a winner.