Tag: #alphastack

Q is for …. Quality over Quantity

My Q stack is small but they are a couple great series books! Two of my favorites series actually.

Another little fun fact about me, I am a also a Quilter! I don’t have quite as much time as I would like to give to this hobby but it brings me so much joy when I can.

Quicksand by Iris Johansen

Published: 4/22/2008

Book 8 in the Eve Duncan series

This is one of my favorite Crime Thriller series and I talk about it all the time! I can’t remember when I first started the series, it’s been over a decade, lefts start there. 🤔 I found The Killing Game (Book 2) and The Search (Book 3) at a garage sale. The books themselves do not call out that they are a series or what order they come in, so I assumed they were just stand alone books. After I started on the second one, I quickly realized these were related and looked up the rest to see where they fell in the series. I was very thankful that they were just # 2 and 3. I have to say that I absolutely hate starting a series unknowingly somewhere in the middle or god forbid the end. 😩 I will be honest, have a slight control problem 😏. I quickly figured out the series order and book 1 and got back on track, been reading them ever since and loving it! I will be reading Eve (Book 12) this year as part of my 50 Books 50 States Challenge.

I love everything forensics, and I am so intrigued by the forensic sculpting. To be able to reconstruct the face of the person just from the skull is amazing to me! Aside from the great plot and twists these books have, I think that it is the mix of science and art with forensic sculpting that has me captivated the most in these.

Book Blurb:

The number-one blockbuster bestselling author returns with a thriller that pits Eve Duncan against the one man who can put her darkest horror to rest – or make her relive it over and over again….

“Do you still miss your little Bonnie?”

This one sentence, spoken by a madman in an anonymous phone call, is all it takes to drag Eve Duncan right back to that horrifying day years ago when her only daughter vanished without a trace. Since that day, her life has become an obsession to find Bonnie’s remains and put the pain of her death to rest. However, one man wants nothing more than to prevent that from happening. He is every woman’s waking nightmare: a brilliant, ruthless killer whose hunting ground stretches from coast to coast. But taunting Eve Duncan might be his first and last mistake….

For Eve is armed with more than just her talent as a forensic sculptor and her fierce protective nature. She brings with her former Navy SEAL Joe Quinn, an Atlanta detective who will do whatever it takes to bring Eve some kind of peace, even if he has to lie to do it.

Eve’s only salvation may be through the mysterious skills of another woman whose chilling talent leaves her as tormented as Eve – and as driven to bring this monster to justice. But when lives are in danger, every step could be a trap, and every inch of solid ground seems to be shifting under their feet. And this killer wants nothing more than to lure Eve further and further into his swamp of madness….

With relentless pace and gut-wrenching intensity, Quicksandis Iris Johansen at her best.

Q is for Quarry by Sue Grafton

Published: 10/14/2002

Book 17 in the Kinsey Millhone series, or the Alphabet series as most like to call it.

I have not yet got to this one yet, I am only up to C is for Corpse (book 3), which I will be reading this year as part of my 2021 Popsugar Reading Challenge. If you have not heard of Popsugar or their yearly reading challenges, you need to go check them out! So much fun and a great way to expand your horizons while also smashing through your TBR’s. The 2021 POPSUGAR Reading Challenge Is Here — Ready, Set, Read! You can also join their Goodreads Group, Ultimate Popsugar Reading Challenge.

I was introduced to this series just a few years ago by a great friend who also gave me all the books up to this one. 💕 As a huge fan of Private Investigator books, I love these! Even with only the first two books completed I can tell already why this series is so popular and loved around the world. I can’t believe that I had never heard about them before.

I love that this particular book in the series is based on a true crime and that the author is trying to help identify the victim and bring her peace.

Book Blurb:

She was a “Jane Doe,” an unidentified white female whose decomposed body was discovered near a quarry off California’s Highway 1. The case fell to the Santa Teresa County Sheriff’s Department, but the detectives had little to go on. The woman was young, her hands were bound with a length of wire, there were multiple stab wounds, and her throat had been slashed. After months of investigation, the murder remained unsolved.

That was eighteen years ago. Now the two men who found the body, both nearing the end of long careers in law enforcement, want one last shot at the case. Old and ill, they need someone to help with their legwork and they turn to Kinsey Millhone. They will, they tell her, find closure if they can just identify the victim. Kinsey is intrigued and agrees to the job.

But revisiting the past can be a dangerous business, and what begins with the pursuit of Jane Doe’s real identity ends in a high-risk hunt for her killer.

“Q” is for Quarry is based on an unsolved homicide that occurred in 1969, and Grafton’s interest in the case has generated renewed police efforts. During the past year, the body was exhumed and a nationally known forensic artist did the facial reconstruction that appears in the closing pages of “Q” is for Quarry. Both Grafton and the dedicated members of the Santa Barbara Sheriff’s Department are hoping the photograph will trigger memories that may lead to a positive identification.

On the day Jane Doe was reburied, many officers were at the gravesite. “It’s eerie,” Grafton writes, “to think about the power this woman still has. Here we are, thirty-three years later, and she still wants to go home.”