Review – Breaker’s Reef

From the back cover:   The murders occurring on Cape Refuge mirror scenes in a local writer’s novels. Could the killer be a copycat or the author himself?

When a teenage girl’s body is discovered in a boat between Tybee Island and Cape Refuge, all evidence points to a famous mystery writer who has taken up residence in the small town: Marcus Gibson. After all, ex-con Sheila Caruso discovers that a scene in one of his books perfectly mirrors the brutal crime scene, and Gibson seems just eccentric enough to be murderous.

Police Chief Cade works to confirm the evidence—but more devastation is just around the corner. He and Blair Owens discover a second dead teenager, again paralleling a scene in one of Gibson’s books. Then Sheila’s daughter, Sadie, goes missing.

In a race against time, there are many questions to be answered. Can Cade find the killer before Sadie is murdered too? What connection does Sheila have with the crimes? And is Marcus one of the killers—or is the murderer still walking free, ready to prey on his next victim?

Ms. Blackstock makes us hit the ground running and just does not let up with the suspense. There is a murder that looks as though it was copied from a mystery writer’s book. Then a young girl goes missing while another murder occurs that also looks like a scene from a mystery. Could the mystery writer himself be committing these murders? Once the action gets going Ms. Blackstock revs up the thriller quotient considerably which will have you reading and flipping pages as fast as you can.  I think it takes a highly skilled author to pull of something like this and let me tell you I think Ms. Blackstock is one highly skilled author.  Blair Owens and Police Chief Cade are well-defined characters that know what they are doing and whom we root for to figure out just what is going on.  Don’t start this book late at night because it will be very difficult to put it down or stop thinking about it.  I recommend this book highly.