The Book:
Live to Tell (Detective D.D. Warren #4) by Lisa Gardner
Published: July 2010 by Bantam Books
Torrie’s Rating:
★★★★
The Plot (Lisa Gardner’s Website):
On a warm summer night in one of Boston’s working-class neighborhoods, an unthinkable crime has been committed: Four members of a family have been brutally murdered. The father – and possible suspect – now lies clinging to life in the ICU. Murder – suicide? Or something worse? Veteran police detective D. D. Warren is certain of only one thing: There’s more to this case than meets the eye.
Danielle Burton is a survivor, a dedicated nurse whose passion is to help children at a locked-down pediatric psych ward. But she remains haunted by a family tragedy that shattered her life nearly twenty-five years ago. The dark anniversary is approaching, and when D. D. Warren and her partner show up at the facility, Danielle immediately realizes: It has started again.
A devoted mother, Victoria Oliver has a hard time remembering what normalcy is like. But she will do anything to ensure that her troubled son has some semblance of a childhood. She will love him no matter what. Nurture him. Keep him safe. Protect him. Even when the threat comes from within her own house.
Torrie’s Review:
I sound like a broken record, but I swear Lisa Gardner only knows how to write a story where old secrets create a modern mystery. I enjoy the two-fold storytelling where we’re trying to understand the past and solve the current crime, but it feels a bit formulaic when you’re reading her books back to back, like I have been. All that being said, I didn’t completely guess this ending. I guessed who did it, but I couldn’t understand the why, and I certainly kept second-guessing myself. The layers of mystery kept me entertained and interested, I flew through reading this book as I really needed to know what happened!