Say Goodbye: An FBI Profiler Novel

Lisa Gardner

Jul 2008 · FBI Profiler Book 6 · Sold by Bantam

About this ebook

The bestselling author of Hide and Gone draws us into the venomous mind games of a terrifying killer.

Come into my parlor . . .

For Kimberly Quincy, FBI Special Agent, it all starts with a pregnant hooker. The story Delilah Rose tells Kimberly about her johns is too horrifying to be true—but prostitutes are disappearing, one by one, with no explanation, and no one but Kimberly seems to care.

Said the spider to the fly . . .

As a member of the Evidence Response Team, dead hookers aren’t exactly Kimberly’s specialty. The young agent is five months pregnant—she has other things to worry about than an alleged lunatic who uses spiders to do his dirty work. But Kimberly’s own mother and sister were victims of a serial killer. And now, without any bodies and with precious few clues, it’s all too clear that a serial killer has found the key to the perfect murder . . . or Kimberly is chasing a crime that never happened.

Kimberly’s caught in a web more lethal than any spider’s, and the more she fights for answers, the more tightly she’s trapped. What she doesn’t know is that she’s close—too close—to a psychopath who makes women’ s nightmares come alive, and if he has his twisted way, it won’t be long before it’ s time for Kimberly to . . .

SAY GOODBYE

Ratings and reviews

FBI Special Agent Kimberly Quincy gets word that a prostitute has been arrested and has info for her. Deliah Rose tells her that a john is taking street prostitutes to his place, putting poisonous spiders on them and engaging in other dangerous activities. Her friend Ginny is missing as are other prostitutes. She wants Kimperly to stop him. Kimberly's associate Sal Martingnetti, also feels that something is happening to prostitutes. Twice he has had the driver's licenses of three women placed inside his window wipers. The licenses are of prostitutes who have disappeared. However, no bidies have been found and it's difficult to get his superiors to allow a full investigation. Kim agrees to help, even though she's five months pregnant. One night they follow Deliah to a place they know Ginny's boyfriend was at when he was murdered. When confronted, Deliah admits that she's Ginny and the john she referrs to as Dinchara because he has a fetish for spiders. He gets a kick out of seeing fear and has played a tape that had the voice of her mother, being tortured. Kim and Sal must find a way to get evidence on Dinchara. They want Ginny to wear a wire, then they learn that he also has a teenage boy working with him and is grooming a younger boy for future work. Now the mission is to stop Dinchara and rescue the boys. The author knows suspense and has given her readers a story that will keep them mesmerized until the end. Her plot is original and the characters are well drawn. A well done novel that will keep Gardner's fans coming back for more.

SAY GOODBYE Lisa Gardner Bantam Thriller ISBN: 9780553804331 • Read an Excerpt • Author Talk –– July 18, 2008 Lisa Gardner's latest novel has something to terrify everyone. Pick your poison: Spiders. Abducted children. Spiders. Sexual abuse. Spiders. Put it all in the frame of a smartly plotted and compellingly told tale and you have a winner, one that you won't put down from beginning to end, other than to brush the imaginary crawling things off yourself. SAY GOODBYE heralds the return of the extended Quincy family, with the focus this time on FBI Special Agent Kimberly Quincy. Gardner has a winning formula with the Quincys, one that enables her to concentrate on a different member of the family in each novel while keeping the others as supporting characters. While each of them is memorable in his or her own way, it's Kimberly who is perhaps the most complex. She's not entirely likable, a bit too high-maintenance in a relationship, even under the best of circumstances. Kimberly is several months' pregnant at the start of the book; if one perhaps was expecting her impending motherhood to scrub the hard edges off her, one would be sorely disappointed. That, however, is in many ways a good thing in SAY GOODBYE, as she is in the middle of a case involving missing prostitutes in which no one, except Kimberly, seems to care. A young prostitute who goes by the name Delilah Rose is placed under arrest and claims that she is Kimberly's informant. Kimberly does not know the woman but is drawn into the matter when Delilah claims to have knowledge about a bizarre John with a penchant for spiders who is linked to the disappearance and probable murder of a number of young women. Though initially reluctant, Kimberly feels some empathy for Delilah, given that Delilah herself is pregnant and that Kimberly's mother and sister were both victims of a serial killer. Kimberly throws herself totally into the case, at the risk of her health and her marriage. Her husband Mac has issues of his own, having been offered a promotion that would require them to relocate, and she is beginning to feel parallels between her own career and that of her father's, whose years with the FBI wrecked his marriage. Kimberly gradually moves closer and closer to uncovering the murderer's identity, drawn in part by some enigmatic, eerie telephone calls from a young boy who sounds as if he is phoning for help and who may be in the process of being groomed as the killer's successor. As matters race to a riveting conclusion, she finds that the assailant is targeting others besides prostitutes and that one of his targets in particular is extremely close to home. Gardner begins SAY GOODBYE by dropping clues throughout that unify the story, and then dropping surprises --- if you call explosions surprises --- that slowly complete the tale during the second half. You will see some of them coming, but many of them you won't. There is one particular bombshell dropped in the last couple of pages (no peeking!) that says a lot about the enduring nature of evil and the acts performed in its name. There are many subtle and tangential references to arachnoids as well. I won't give you any examples here, as part of the enjoyment of the book is picking up on these as you go along. A great many of the chapters are also prefaced with little factoids about spiders, most of which will do absolutely nothing to help you sleep without checking your bed sheets a few times per night. The most frightening monsters, however, have two legs, not eight, and thus are deserving of greater scrutiny. You won't read SAY GOODBYE without drawing your children just a bit closer to you every hour of every day. --- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub

je me régale avec les livres de Lisa Gardner en français je le précise car parfois vous m'en proposez en anglais. c'est une sacrée écrivaine dans ses livres il y a souvent un sacré suspense et ça j'adore. dommage qu'elle n'a pas plus de livres traduit en langue française... un grand merci à elle pour les bons moments qu'elle me fait passer grâce à ses livres.

About the author

Lisa Gardner is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of twenty suspense novels, including The Neighbor, which won Thriller of the Year from the International Thriller Writers. An avid hiker, traveler and cribbage player, she lives in the mountains of New Hampshire with her family.