Right Behind You by Lisa Gardner
Publication Date: January 23, 2017
Read Date: January 3, 2017
Series: FBI Profiler (Quincy & Rainie) Series
Book #7
Retired FBI profilers Quincy and Rainie are in the process of adopting their foster daughter, Sharlah. Meanwhile, tragedy strikes the town and it’s looking like Sharlah’s brother Telly Ray Nash, whom she hasn’t seen in eight years, is the shooter. What does this mean for Sharlah and why is he killing again after beating his drunken father to death with a baseball bat years before?
This crime procedural is part of a series but it’s also a stand alone. I didn’t have any issues wondering what I was missing. With that out of the way, it took me a long time to get into this. I would read a chapter, then put it down and read something else. It took me a full month before I finally had read enough chapters to get me interested and then I couldn’t put it down.
What made it hard for me to get interested in the story was how much telling was going on versus showing. Especially in Sharlah’s perspective. She just explains everything and that’s not really the writing style I am interested in. It was really her and Shelly the Sheriff’s perspectives at the beginning that caused me to not keep reading this faster; I just didn’t really care. Shelly made a big deal about electronics being difficult too, which is just ridiculous, we’re not in the stone ages anymore.
Anyways, after pushing myself past the telling versus showing aspect, I started to get into the story. Both Telly and Sharlah have been bounced around the foster care system, Sharlah getting lucky and finding her forever home, and Telly finding a place that wanted to prepare him for the world. It was interesting to see the two different takes on foster care families, one who wanted a daughter to call their own and the other wanting to be mentors to really help a troubled teen find his way.
There are twists and turns, every law enforcement officer and volunteer after Telly, yet mayhem still ensues. How can a 17 year old be so intelligent and stay out of sight and several steps ahead of everyone? It’s cool to see how he learned everything he knows whenever we were in his perspective. I liked Telly’s story-being able to understand him with each new chapter on him.
This was a fast read after getting into it, even if it’s 400 pages. If you’re a fan of the Quincy and Rainie series, I’m sure you’ll love it. Having never read the series before, I’m not sure this sold me on going back to find out more about the characters. One more note, I love how Gardner gets the names for her book. She holds little contests and offers up literacy infamy to those that donate to the animal shelter in her area-genius!
I received this advanced reader copy courtesy of the Penguin First to Read program.
Thorough Edits 