Last Words

Last words is a murder mystery. It is set in small towns in Maryland. It starts when a young teenage boy finds his older sister wrapped in plastic wrap on their front porch. Imagine being sixteen and finding your older sister laying dead on the front porch. The police is called and they find a recorded tape message on cassette tape of the final words by the victim. The autopsy showed that the girl had been wrapped in cellophane while she was still alive and the suspect watched the victim slowly die. The police chief refused to call the FBI for assistance.

There was one city having it's annual festival that had thousands in town, making the town swell. The chief was out handling an accident heading into town for the annual boat festival. The retired police chief was asked to come in and handle the overflow of traffic. After the first girl was found murdered the police chief's of four surrounding cities held a press conference. They explained that as of right now this was an isolated incident, but they were aware of other missing girls. The press conference was to show a united front by the four cities involved.

The next day because of the press conference the police chief where the boat festival was taking place, found a second girl. She too was deceased, and the motive operandi was the same as the first girl. The chief was trying to figure out why him. He didn't hesitate, he called in the FBI immediately. They noticed that the method was very professional, no prints were left behind on the cellophane or the cassette tape. The suspect was unknown, no DNA was left behind. The way he kills is very sickening.

The suspect has each girl make a recording before he wraps her in cellophane and watches her die. For her, it is a slow agonizing death for him, it is an enjoyment. This book is very well written and the author does a great job with the details. The author must have at one time been involved in law enforcement or knew someone who was. The details were too established for an amateur writer. I would highly recommend this book to anyone.

The higher the body count the more determined police and the FBI become in finding their killer. The female FBI agent that was assigned to the case made a public statement that basically publicly challenged the killer to where she became a target. One night the police chief slept outside of her hotel room so nothing would happen to her. During the course of the investigation one of the female officers disappeared and was found murdered later on the day she went missing. She was a quick kill because she managed to figure out who the murderer was and he had to keep her quiet.

But who was the suspect? Was he local? Was he from out of state here for the boat festival? Was he a serial killer? Did all of the missing girls tie together? How much further could a small police department with one FBI agent stretch their resources? Why didn't the other jurisdictions call for the FBI when they had their first murder? These were just a few questions that law enforcement was trying to piece together.

As the body count continued to climb in four different counties, the motive operandi remained the same. The tapes that were recorded had both a haunting and chilling message to them for the parents. Imagine getting a tape that has your daughters voice on it and they are her very last words to you. How would you react? I gave this book five stars out of five stars.