LOVE YOU MORE

TITLE: LOVE YOU MORE

AUTHOR: LISA GARDNER

Pages: 356

Date: 03/03/2012

Grade: 5

Details: no. 5 D.D. Warren

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Detective D.D. Warren isn’t feeling very well and looking forward to a few days off work when she gets called out to a messy crime scene.

What D.D. Warren finds on a Boston kitchen floor is the body of Brian Darby who was shot by his wife, state police trooper Tessa Leoni who claims she shot him in self-defence. Since Leoni has all the injuries and bruises to indicate a severe case of abuse, it would seem that this is an open-and-shut case except, Leoni’s six year old daughter is missing.

D.D. Warren finds herself working with Bobby Dodge, her former lover and still good friend. Together they try to make sense of the case they’re facing. Is this a case of self-defence? Would a trained trooper use her gun when she has so many other weapons at her disposal? Did Leoni kill both her husband and her daughter? Or is something else, something bigger going on.

Tessa Leoni meanwhile has her own, very urgent, agenda and will do anything it takes to find and save that which is most precious in her life regardless of the cost to herself and to others.

This is a very well plotted and fast-paced thriller/mystery. Told in alternating chapters from both Tessa Leoni’s and the investigator’s perspective the reader has a little bit more information about what is going on than D.D. and Bobby do. Even so, the story is filled with shocks and surprises as Leoni manipulates those around her.

I found myself changing my opinion about Leoni every few pages, never quite sure what she was up to and what had really happened in that kitchen until near the end of the book.

Gardner keeps the tension high at all times while still inserting a personal story-line for D.D. that makes the case she’s dealing with even more harrowing than it already was.

This story made me wonder how far I would be willing to go to protect those I love. What would I be capable of if it came down to the safety of my child? I don’t think I can answer that question and I sincerely hope that I will never find myself in a situation where I will be forced to find out.

These books by Lisa Gardner are a perfect example of what a page-turner actually is and I enjoyed this one so much that I ordered the next one in the series, Catch me, when I was about halfway through this story. I do hope I will have my hands on it soon.