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Book Review of Shatter (Joseph O'Loughlin, Bk 3)

Shatter (Joseph O'Loughlin, Bk 3)
reviewed on + 175 more book reviews


4.0 out of 5 stars - Are you a mother? Would you take your child's place if he or she had been abducted by a man who offered you that choice? What would any parent do to keep their child safe?

A woman jumps from a bridge wearing only her red Jimmy Choos. At first everyone thinks it was a suicide. Then another is found, dead from exposure, handcuffed to a tree. The next is lured to a bandstand in Victoria Park. What do these women have in common -- aside from being friends and childhood schoolmates?

There's a man who knows everything about them because he watches and listens. He has many unique abilities and a special skill -- the ability to break a mind -- and he has a twisted reason for what he's doing. This man is not a garden-variety psychopath and his cunning is pitted against psychologist Joe O'Loughlin in this 4th suspense thriller in the series.

The narrative moves along rapidly as it shifts between points of view building suspense and anxiety for the reader as it races toward the inevitable confrontation between good and evil. I like the way this author writes and he's very careful with description and able to convey an incredible amount of detail about a wide range of subjects from the banal to the technical.

The characters are multidimensional and definitely will elicit various reactions from readers. I have shifted from detesting Joe to now despising Julianne since the first book of the series. I've forgiven him, embraced his struggle as he lives with worsening Parkinson's Disease symptoms, and shook my head sadly as he tries to cling to the few things he values in life -- his family and his vocation.

I am definitely going to order the rest of the books in this series and recommend them to anyone looking for a pulse pounding thrill of a read. I'd suggest reading them in order to fully appreciate the nuances of the changing relationships in the series, but it works equally well as a stand-alone.