"Superb crime thriller"

On the surface it would appear that the members of THE SURVIVORS CLUB had nothing in common. Meg is a twenty-year- old college student; Carol is a fortyish uptown homemaker; and Jillian is a fiercely independent woman who runs her own business. Yet the three women have formed a strong bond based on the fact that they all survived attacks of a serial rapist.

Their group is largely responsible for the arrest of the College Killer Rapist. They all believe that the DA will have no trouble convicting Eddie Como for his crimes because his DNA matched with samples taken from all the crime sites. On the first day of the trial as Eddie is taken to court, an assassin on a nearby roof kills him. The women believe their nightmare is over but they will soon realize it is only just beginning.

THE SURVIVORS CLUB is a superb crime thriller told from the point of view of the three protagonists and the lead detective on the case. Lisa Gardner handles these multiple third person viewpoints so that the reader knows what is happening at all the time. However, this knowledge in no way gives a hint to what the final outcome will be or even if all the players will survive a diabolical psychopath's ingenious plan. Fans of Patricia Cornwell will enjoy Ms. Gardner's latest potboiler.

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted May 5, 2002

Summary

One of today's most electrifying suspense novelists, New York Times bestselling author Lisa Gardner returns with a shattering thriller that dares to play on our deepest vulnerabilities. In this masterful new novel, the killer may very well be the one you sympathize with the most.... THE FIRST RULE IS NEVER BLAME THE VICTIM. They survived what no woman should ever have to endure. Now these three women have the means, the opportunity, and the perfect motive. Are they trying to get away with murder--or is someone trying to make sure that this time they don't get away at all? The Survivors Club. . .that's what Jillian Hayes, Carol Rosen, and Meg Pesaturo call it. They won't consider themselves victims. They are survivors. They faced the blazing headlines and helped lead the investigation that caught the man who changed their lives forever. And now that Eddie Como, the College Hill rapist, has been murdered, shot down outside a packed courthouse moments before his trial was about to begin, all three women are openly ecstatic that he's dead. They are also the prime suspects in his murder. Detective Sergeant Roan Griffin knows all too well what can drive even the best people to cross the line. But he has never seen a case quite like this one. No one doubts that the murder of Eddie Como was a professional job, especially when the gunman is killed only blocks away from the shooting. But questions taunt Griffin: Who ordered the deaths of Eddie Como and his killer? Could three ordinary women have been driven to do he unthinkable? Had someone in the Survivors Club become a killer? Griffin seeks the truth-- and finds himself confronted with the leader of the Survivors Club. Jillian Hayes is beautiful, successful, cool as ice, and she harbors a pain that mirrors Griffin's own. Did the horror of what happened to her push her over the thin and desperate line that separates survival and revenge? And if it did, could he blame her--or anyone in the Survivors Club? Then another woman is brutally attacked. Suddenly, with the city on the ragged edge of panic, gripped in a media and political firestorm of controversy, cover-up, and conspiracy, the hunt is on for a ruthless and cunning killer. For Griffin, this may well be the case that shatters his career. For Jillian, the harrowing nightmare is beginning all over again. Someone is out there. Someone who wants to finish what was started. Someone who wants to make sure that no one survives the Survivors Club.