My Reading Nook

Jefferey Deaver is a two-time British Crime Writers Award winning author of over twenty suspense novels. Bodies Left Behind adds to that list of successful novels.

Deaver reintroduces us to Brynn McKenzie whom we met in The Bone Collector. She’s a deputy in a small town sheriff’s office who has devils pursuing her from her past. But the thing is about your past, you can never outdistance it as Brynn learns.

One April night, two people are murdered in a remote lake house. Before they’re killed, the man gets off a call to 911 and Brynn is notified to run the call. The killers are professionals out to do a job. But when Brynn arrives, she finds them still at the crime scene with tires shot out of the two vehicles parked at the house. Trying to piece together what’s going on in seconds gets her shot at and pursued. The killers drive her into the lake where she barely escapes her sunken car alive. Now she’s on the run through a forest the likes of which rival a Germanic troll forest surrounding the lake. She comes upon a frightened woman who she assumes is the missing friend of the murdered couple. Together they make their way through the woods to the interstate highway all the while being pursued by the two killers and coming close to getting killed several times.

Brynn is hours past due back home and her husband has notified her boss and a hunt is on the way. Graham is convinced that the sheriff is directing the search for his wife in the wrong place and convinces one of the deputies to accompany him to look where he’s sure Brynn has gone. But instead of the two men finding the killers or the women, the killers find them and kill the deputy.

Jeffery Deaver has provided some interesting twists in this novel. However, the ending leaves us disappointed as Brynn fails to pursue her would-be assasin to the bitter end. Instead he leaves it to unknown others to do away with the mysterious Hart. This is totally out of character for Brynn and leaves the novel ending on a note of discord. It’s almost like Mr. Deaver hit his deadline and tied off the novel before it could be drawn out to a more natural conclusion.

The Bodies Left Behind by Jeffery Deaver
Published by Simon and Schuster 2008
ISBN-13: 978-1-4165-9561-8
ISBN-10: 1-4165-9561-9

Related articles by Zemanta

• Review: The Bodies Left Behind by Jeffery Deaver (guardian.co.uk)