"fast-paced character driven investigative tale"

Olivia "Livie" St. Martin tries to stop the man with the blue bird on his arm from abducting her older sister Melissa, but he just slaps the little girl away and throws Missy inside his black truck. As he drives off, Livie's parents hearing her screams race outside, but they are too late. Her mom hugs Olivia, but that was the last squeeze she ever received from her.

Over three decades later, Olivia is Director of Trace Evidence and Materials Analysis at the FBI lab in Virginia when her former husband Dr. Greg van Burns informs her that the DNA of the man she testified abducted her sibling, Brian Harrison Hall, does not match a hair found on Missy's corpse. Hall is freed while Livie is stunned as the only thing that relieved her survival guilt was the conviction of her sibling's rapist-killer. Needing to learn the truth, she breaks office procedures by leaving the lab to do field work. Olivia quickly finds evidence that a serial killer is loose and has been for years; his last known victim in Seattle where she teams up with workaholic Police Detective Zack Travis to stop a clever psychopath and to figure out who killed Missy.

THE KILL is a fast-paced character driven investigative tale starring a stunned heroine who knows the irony that her field of expertise exonerated Hall. The romance between Livie and Zack seems somewhat forced, as the investigation takes front and center as the crime lab guru and the homicide detective follow clues that take several intriguing twists. Fans of police procedurals with an overwrought obsessed star will want to read Allison Brennan's fine thriller and seek her two previous FBI tales (See THE PREY and THE HUNT).

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted February 21, 2006

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Summary

Her worst nightmare brought back to life, she risks everything for a second shot at justice.

For thirty years, FBI scientist Olivia St. Martin has lived with guilt and one abiding certainty—that while she wasn't able to save her sister's life, she did testify and helped to convict the rapist and killer. When shocking new evidence exonerates the man Olivia is sure she saw abduct her sister, she breaks every rule in the book to uncover the truth.

Driven by the possibility that she put the wrong man behind bars, Olivia discovers that a serial killer has been at large all these years. Believing that the monster has just struck again in Seattle, Olivia leaves her lab and poses as a field agent, sharing her unofficial investigation with a hardworking Seattle cop. Olivia doesn't want to lie to detective Zack Travis. And she certainly doesn't want to fall in love. But as the investigation intensifies, Olivia and Zack find that they're rapidly losing control—over their hearts, their secrets, and a case that threatens to consume them.