The Fifth to Die – J.D. Barker

Murder. It’s a family affair.

In the midst of one of the worst winters Chicago has seen in years, the body of missing teenager Ella Reynolds is discovered under the surface of a frozen lake.

She’s been missing for three weeks… the lake froze over three months ago.

Detective Sam Porter and his team are brought in to investigate but it’s not long before another girl goes missing. The press believes the serial killer, Anson Bishop, has struck again but Porter knows differently. The deaths are too different, there’s a new killer on the loose.

Porter however is distracted. He’s still haunted by Bishop and his victims, even after the FBI have removed him from the case. His only leads: a picture of a female prisoner and a note from Bishop: ‘Help me find my mother. I think it’s time she and I talked.’

As more girls go missing and Porter’s team race to stop the body count rising, Porter disappears to track down Bishop’s mother and discover that the only place scarier than the mind of a serial killer is the mind of the mother from which he came.

I received a review copy from the publisher through Netgalley.

 

The Fifth to Die picks up on the story (the fabulous story) started in The Fourth Monkey.  We see the return of Detective Sam Porter who is still obsessing about the killer from The Fourth Monkey and has been removed from that investigation.

No let-up on the body count though as a new spate of murders are taking place and they have been carefully planned to confuse the police. A missing girl is found frozen in a lake. The lake has been frozen solid for months, however, the girl only went missing three weeks earlier.  There is no natural explanation as to how she got under the ice – yet there she is.

More deaths shall follow and it is clear a very sophisticated and intelligent killer is at work. Porter has his own distraction going on, however, as he pursues a lead in the case he is not even meant to be considering. It will take him far from the action but could end up placing him in more danger than he could know.

The Fifth to Die is a tense police procedural and the reader gets to follow the unfolding investigation.  JD Barker keeps the story flowing really well, there were shocks and surprises which kept me engrossed and the killer is decidedly nasty so there are some dark moments which I very much enjoyed.

The Fourth Monkey made my Top Ten reads of 2017 and I was dying to get my hands on The Fifth to Die.  I was not disappointed.

 

The Fifth to Die is published by HQ and is available in paperback, digital and audiobook format. You can order a copy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Fifth-Die-Detective-Porter-novel/dp/0008250383/ref=sr_1_1?crid=259Z6V2QUTEMH&keywords=jd+barker+books&qid=1554661647&s=gateway&sprefix=j+d+bar%2Caps%2C173&sr=8-1