Many Sides To US All Stars
/Spoiler Free
We have all heard the phrase There are two sides to every story.
. . Well in my life, I have always thought more to the idea of Three Sides, . . Yours, the other person's and then the Over View of what went down, combining the both views, . . Because I could see where one person had an impression of what they thought happened and then the other had another take, . . causing both participants to not actually see the Big Picture, . . And sometimes that was true, . .
But then again, sometimes a thing was just a thing, . .
In The Watson Girl by Leslie Wolfe, we are given Three Voices, experiencing what is happening and it works so well, Each participant is in the throws of needing to fix "things",
FBI Special Agent Tess Winnett has been on a medical leave, She had injuries and trauma from her last assignment which usually require a much longer recovery time, Tess somehow was able to manipulate only aweek time off instead of the, She is not physically ready and she is having some issues mentally, . . but Tess was never one to let those types of things to get in her way, You could call her singularly focused when she becomes determined, . . And Tess needs to get back to work,
Tess knows this is going to be difficult she is not the most popular agent around, . . She is not social. She is easily described as disrespectful, arrogant, dismissive and wanting only to keep her perfect record of closed cases, She has no friends in the agency and working with others is not her thing, Tess has deep secrets that have manifested in PTSD which she has not attempted to resolve, Working is her outlet and getting back on the job will save her, . .
Tess is called into her boss's office, These two are like oil and water, Tess thinks he is annoyed with her because she has aclosure rate to his, Thosecount. He looks at her and starts to read her the riot act Tess is too quick to use force, . . she kills all of the bad guys, she walks all over the witnesses and now the Political forces are breathing down his neck because of her actions.
He is having none of it,
Tess at first tries to answer back but then realizes she needs to just take it, She has been told she needs to work better with others and close a case without killing the bad guy,
Fine.
Tess is given a standard procedure, She is to do the final interview of the convicted serial killer called the Family Man scheduled to be executed, This is a guy who killedfamilies over the course of many years, Her boss assigns all the files to her telling her in so many words to Get Her Shit Together,
Tess goes to the prison, is prepared to do the usual interview with the standard questionnaire when the admitted killer informs her like has with all the other detectives before.
. . he did not kill all the families they have convicted him of, . . yes he killed,families not, and if she really wanted the truth, . . It is in the files, . . The Watson family is one of them,
Laura Watson is at a turning point in her life, . . but doesn't know it yet, Laura was a victim of one of those horrific killings by the Family Man, She was onlyorwhen everything happened and some how she hid in a clothes hamper, . . escaping the deaths of her family, She was taken in by her father's business partner and family, She lost all memory of that night and became part of a loving family, She is an adult now, finishing her bachelor's degree in Engineering and can't wait to start working with the lighting company her adopted father started with her real dad.
Laura's life seems to have been better over the years but she has always wanted to know what happened that fateful night and it has pulled at her with varying degrees of need.
She is also in a relationship with man has his own dark past, Her man is sometimes too possessive and protective, He can be a challenge as his scars are deep,
And then there is HIM, We are given the voice and thoughts of HIM, He tells us of what he thinks, . . how the first time taking someone's life was the victim's fault, . . and how he was so lucky there was an active serial killer in the news, . . Why that was the answer! Study and do everything like that idiot and no one will know the difference, The police with chalk it up to the killer they know and he will be scotfree, . .
What he didn't realize though, was his love of the killing, . . realizing he was a hunter and thrived on it, . . methodical, organized in his mind and loved the thrill of it all, The Watson family was his first, . . and he thought he had it all handled perfectly, He read everything about how The Family Man did his killings even down to the type of weapon and bullets, He had studied all of the family's actions, the number of people in the family, . . timed everything right But he made a mistake and now all the chickens will come home to roost, .
This book is chocked full of so much, it grabs you from the start and doesn't let go till the end, . . and even then you are still involved, We get it all and it is done with the alternating voices of the three main players each with the pain, needs and realizations as they come.
Laura has been carrying the need to know, . . and also has survivor's guilt, She wants to have the knowledge of that night as a way to have a connection to her real parents, . . She is also dealing with this rocky relationship and has decisions to make, . . She is extremely strong and has overcome so much,
Tess has been dealing with a trauma she will never share with others, . . and it causes her to understand more than most in her position, But it also has caused her to hide and not be accessible emotionally, She is brilliant and so insightful it can be a hindrance to others because she will not let go on a hunch if it feels like it could be the lead to the answer somehow.
She is trying, though, to be more inclusive and open, . .
HIM what can I say about a killer who relishes sharing his ideas of kills, equates them with different types of Apples, . . I will forever think of Apple of my Eye differently from this point forward, It also demonstrates that everything is not all that they seem to be, . . There are different sides to us, . . some more understandable but then there can be that one who is nothing like what they present, . .
This had some twists and turns, . . It had a detailed process in the discover of the killings and the parts of putting the pieces together were well done, . . you were there in the room when things would show themselves and it made the experience stronger, All of the secondary characters contributed, . . relationships between all of them had merit, I will be looking for the next entry, . . Leslie Watson has made me a reader of hers,
Before Reading
The Tricks the Mind plays,
One to Protect the Innocent, . .
One to Discover the Truth, . .
And One to Allow us to Experience the Justification,
All of this comes together with,
The Watson Girl Special Agent Tess WinnettJanuaryst
A gifted copy was provided by Italics Publishing via NetGalley for an honest review.
For more s, Free Ebooks and Giveaways
sitelink ,Stars
The Watson Girl is Laura Watson, Fifteen years ago her entire family plus a neighbor's young son were brutally murdered in their home, Laura hid in a laundry hamper which saved her young life,
The murderer is sitting on death row, . . his execution will be carried out in a few days, What they call The Family Man killed more thanfamilies,
Special Agent Tess Winnett is instructed to interview the Family Man one more time, especially as there are questions that Tess needs answered.
Much to her surprise, the killer denies killingof the cases, . . he says he didn't do those,
If he didn't kill them, . . then who did Does that mean there is a serial killer who has gotten away with murders for at leastyears,
Tess and her team need to start at the very beginning of these cases and look for any anomalies, Is this a true copy cat running around free Tess gets the honor of informing Laura that the man she thinks killed her family is not behind bars.
Laura has agreed to regression therapy as she remembers nothing about that night, Will the killer come after Laura, . now that her memory may be repaired
This is an excellent crime thriller! It is very well written with alternate chapters in the voice of the killer.
The twist is that he seems to be speaking directly to the reader, The phrase Apple Of My Eye refers to something or someone that one cherishes above all others, . . he killer puts a new twist that phrase,
The characters are all defined with an eye to detail, Tess suffers from PTSD after being an assault victim, Laura is showing her strength in making her own decisions, and more or less telling everyone else to leave her to it, The killer is unique. . or uniquely written. He's the most captivating character of all,
Many thanks to the author / Italics Publishing / Netgalley for the digital copy of this most interesting crime thriller, Opinions expressed here are unbiased and entirely my own,
Mais um thriller que tinha ficado empolgada pois tinha gostado bastante do primeiro livro da autora e posso dizer que este foi ainda melhor.
Laura é uma jovem que háanos a sua família foi morta e apenas ela, comanos, sobreviveu pois escondeuse, Na actualidade, a nossa agente Tess é encarregada de verificar casos antigos e acaba por ir falar com o homem que foi condenado por matar várias famílias, entre as quais a família de Laura, mas ele dizlhe que não foi o culpado pela morte desta família.
E Tess acaba por investigar, para tentar descobrir quem foi o verdadeiro culpado,
Um ponto que me agrada muito nos livros de Leslie Wolfe é, não só focarse na investigação policial mas também no foco na parte psicológica e profilers do culpado.
Adoro! E ainda melhora com a introdução de capítulos dedicado à visão do assassino,
Para além disso, temos ainda uma pequena introdução do tema da hipnose e, confesso, gostaria que tivesse sido um pouco mais desenvolvido.
Mas, mesmo assim, para mim, a história encheume as medidas e fiz uma excelente leitura, FREE on Amazon today!
Blurb:
An entire family was murdered and, by a quirk, a young girl is left unharmed, For fifteen years, she believed the killer had been caught, and hes now on death row, awaiting execution, While trying to be content with her adoptive family, shes living in relentless uncertainty and the fear of remembering what really happened that night when she was five years old.
Shes The Watson Girl.
A therapist has asked her to participate in regression session treatments to attempt to bring back those lost memories, The closer she gets to the truth, however, the less time she has to remain alive, Now, the real killer is going to silence her, before she can remember the details of that horrifying night, when she was an innocent
witness.
Laura Watson is young, beautiful, and shes the murderers loose end,
Join the smart, relentless, and shortfused FBI Special Agent Tess Winnett and her team in a heartstopping search for the serial killer who has managed to stay hidden for many years.
Explore the inner workings of the murderers mind, and find out what motivates such predatory, bloodlusting behavior, while following every twist and turn of an existence spent taking lives.
Laura Watsons family was murdered fifteen years ago,
That was only the beginning, His beginning.
If youre the apple of his eye, youre already dead,
Special Agent Tess Winnett will hold nothing back to stop the killer before he takes another innocent life, She never fails, no matter whats at stake, Even her own life. This is the second Leslie Wolfe book that I have read and I must say in my opinion that Leslie Wolfe is to psychological thrillers as Stephen King is to science fiction.
She has the ability to create a serial killer that is truly psychotic and has no ability to think of anything but his own crazed needs and then lets the reader into his mind.
The Watson family was murdered all but theiryear old daughter who was hiding, Agent Winnett goes back to the FBI from medical leave and is assigned interviewing The Family Man before he is executed, He is attributed with killingfamilies but has always sworn it was, Tess Winnett is not the type to leave any stone unturned so she goes on a mission to find out the truth,
This is a dangerous journey filled with twists and turns, It is wrought with tension, false leads, doubts and more, We also get to look into the mind of a killer and it is a scary place to go,
I highly recommend The Watson Girl to anyone that loves thrillers but you won't necessarily want to read it after dark.
stars
I won this book in a Goodreads giveaway, Thank You Leslie Wolfe for sending me an autographed copy,
This was a good mystery, centered on FBI Agent Tess Winnett, It opens with a killer murdering a whole family, mother, father andchildren, But he made a mistake and missedchild, because they had a visiting child with them, He realizes his mistake and searches for the child, but does not find her, The next chapter switches to Tess, coming back to work afterweeks of medical leave from a work injury that happened in bookof this series.
This is bookof the series and I would have enjoyed it more if I had read bookfirst,
Tess reports to her boss SACSpecial Agent in Charge Pearson, He had wanted her to stay out the fullweeks recommended by her doctor, but she insisted on coming back, They agree to let her come back on limited duty, She is sent to Raiford, Florida state prison, to interview Kenneth Garza, a convicted serial killer, scheduled to be executed in a few weeks.
She interviews him and he tells her that he only killedof thefamilies that he was convicted for, She asks him to name thewrong cases, She decides to compare thosewith the otherand finds discrepancies, She asks permission to reopen the cases from her boss, SAC Pearson, who reluctantly giveshours to come up with proof,
She digs into these cases and realizes that there is another serial killer on the loose in Florida, I suspected the killer about a third of the way in, and unfortunately had my suspicions confirmed when I looked for the table of contents, located in the back, not far from a full page explanation of the killer's identity/motivation.
There was a surprise twist at the end, The narrative switches between the killer, Tess and a grown up Laura Watson, the missing child from the first chapter,
A killer quote: "You see, what I wanted was primal, Total, absolute power over a woman, ".
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Leslie Wolfe