After reading this, I can definitely say that reading the first book will be an asset in understanding and connecting with the characters in this novel. It was quite difficult in the beginning for me to keep all of the names straight and understand the relationships between the different characters mentioned. Eventually, the story took over and I got a hang of it all, but I never felt like I understood or connected with Maggie, Jack, or any other character in the novel.

That being said, this novel was certainly unique, and it is obvious that the author went to a lot of trouble in order to create a realistic setting. I learned a lot about the newspaper industry (maybe, a bit too much at times!) and it gave the story itself some character. The style of the writing and the way the characters acted reminded me of something from Law and Order or any other crime show; you've got a logical process by which murders are investigated, and all of the clues come together to form a cohesive picture. I quite enjoyed the story and the way it was structured! However, I will admit that it was a bit dry at places and I had to push myself at times not to lose interest.

Overall, this book was a good read with a strong plot. However, the characters lacked personality and the in-depth writing style, while creating a rich setting, can be hard to get through. I would recommend this novel for anyone looking for a solid detective story, as it is sure to please fans of this genre.

Maggie Gardiner is a forensic expert and Jack Renner is a homicide cop. Jack has a secret - he is also a serial killer. He only kills the bad guys who escape justice. Maggie knows Jacks secret but Maggie also has secrets - and Jack knows what they are.

A body is found above the grinding wheels of a newspapers assembly line. Maggie I has been. Allied in to investigate. She thinks that it was murder rather than suicide. Then there is another hanging at the newspaper. Will Jack & Maggie find out who is behind the murders before there are any more.

I have not read The Darkness which is the first book in which Maggie & Jack appear. I do think you should read it before starting Unpunished tho. This is a well written who-did-it novel that's fast pace kept me turning the pages.

I would like to thank NetGalley, Kensington Books and the author Lisa Black for my ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Great book, this lady can write! Looking forward to anything new from her. If you havent read Lisa Black do so now! Your missing out

I received in the book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This was a really good old fashioned mystery! I didn't realize this was the 2nd installment of the series, but I was able to follow along without an issue. The plot really kept me wanting to know whodunit and why! The author keeps you interested until the very last page, it was a really quick read, because I didn't want to put it down. I would highly this book.

Entertaining read. Moved along nicely. Interesting characters. Enjoyed it. Recommend reading the first book in this series first though and this one does often refer to it. You can still make perfect sense without it though but would be a more fluid process

Unpunished by Lisa Black
Gardiner & Renner #2

This police procedural has no romance but provides plenty of CSI detail while building the personalities of the main characters solving what proves to be multiple murders that revolve around the newspaper world.

I did not know this was the second in a series and might have benefited from reading the first book BUT was able to make heads and tails of this one anyway. I am not sure what the details of the relationship are between Jack and Maggie but there is plenty of tension between them and soul searching on Maggie’s part as they work the case together. In future books I can almost see them becoming close or at least closer as they figure out the dynamics of how their lives might be able to overlap and perhaps mesh into a more comfortable working relationship/friendship…maybe.

As for the murder mystery and figuring out who the murderer was – I figure it out fairly early on though I had no idea so many would die and for, in my opinion, so little cause. There was a great deal of information about the demise of print newspapers that I found especially interesting since I have discussed this issue recently with someone who believes in paper copies and is currently subscribing to more of them in hopes that she can help sustain them…at least for a while.

Thank you to NetGalley and Kensington Books for the ARC. This is my honest review.

4 Stars

Lisa Black must have lost her momentum after finishing the first book in the Gardiner and Renner series “That Darkness’ since this book had none of the spark or interest that she had previous shown. ‘Unpunished’ reads like a hatchet job on the newspaper publishing industry instead of keeping a serial killer in check that was the premise of the first book and the basis of the relationship between the main characters.

When a relationship was founded on a criminalist and a serial killer within the police department, explaining the inner workings of newspaper publishing takes away from what was previously established. “That Darkness ” a book that I would recommend, was a cat and mouse game and this book, though a spark at the end, was a never ending monotony of how papers are printed and how big money is destroying journalism.

By the end, I did not care who was killing the newspapermen, and for that matter, why they were murdered. Lisa Black drug this book on interminably and by the end, I was thankful that it was over.

Death brings them together. Maggie knows that she has to keep her distance from Jack but she needs to know if he is okay. Jack just wants her to keep her distance can't they just be people that work together. Maggie & Jack both have dark secrets that they can't share with anyone as they have both faced death and beaten it. They both are working a series of murders that are happening around the Herald newspaper and they can't seem to find out who is killing them. Maggie needs to know if Jack took care of a kid that just was no good, but Jack denies it so she lets it go for now. Jack & his partner need to stop this killer before even more bodies start appearing.
They both care about each other but in a strange way I am not too sure if they will ever go there but they both have each other's back but I think that Maggie's ex is about to make trouble for them back. And I hope that Jack doesn't run again.
A very interesting story of two people that believe in justice but just go about it in different ways. I received a copy via Netgalley & the publishing house in exchange for my honest thoughts.

Unpunished is the 2nd in the Gardiner and Renner series by Lisa Black. Reading the first book would have made it so much easier to understand the relationship between the two main characters. Other than that, this story stands alone - and is great! This is a crisp, clean murder mystery, set at a newspaper. The story is well written, unfolds at a great pace for the most part, and has some very nice twists. In addition, I learned a lot about the sad state of the newspaper/print journalism industry today. Black's writing style is pretty spare and to the point, and I like that - not a lot of unnecessary descriptive verbiage. I can see this series just getting better and better. Many thanks to NetGalley and Kensington for allowing me to read an ARC in return for a review. 3.75 stars for this very nice procedural! I have to go back and read the first one now!

Lisa Black writes a good police procedural with "The Unpunished" pairing Maggie Gardiner, a forensic expert, with Jack Renner, a homicide cop to solve a series of murders. I felt a bit behind the eight-ball as I had not read Black's previous book featuring this duo "The Darkness", so I felt quite adrift as I tried to piece together the mechanics of their relationship. I would definitely recommend reading the books in order. Still, Black gave enough clues that part-way through the book I was able to determine that Renner, while a cop, is also a vigilante killer, and that Gardiner knows his secret, but is willing to keep it to herself because he saved her life. Still, these two are not comfortable with each other, so the tension between them is a key dynamic of the book. The murders are all of people connected to a failing newspaper. A bit too much time spent on the journalism/newspaper industry which slowed the pace of the book, in my opinion.

Still a very good read for those into police procedurals. Black has already set the reader up for another book in this series. Just do yourself a favor and read them in order!!

Many thanks to NetGalley, the author, and Kensington Books for allowing me to read an e-ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you for a copy of this book but I am afraid it wasn't for me. Firstly, I struggled with the characters of Maggie Gardiner and Jack Renner as I haven't read the first instalment in this series. The story was a Suicide that turned into murder. The killer straps up his victims and they all work for the diminishing Newspaper the Cleveland Herald. The basis of this story sounded good but I thought the story was directed towards explaining how newspapers are dying out more than a crime novel and i'm afraid to say I got a little bored.

Unpunished is the second book in the Gardiner and Renner series, featuring crime scene technician Maggie Gardiner and detective-by-day and vigilante-by-night Jack Renner, who are asked to investigate the death of the copy editor of the Cleveland Herald, a large daily newspaper on the brink of bankruptcy. What first appeared to be a suicide soon turns into a murder investigation, with more bodies stacking up as the story progresses. What could be the motive behind killing the employees of a struggling newspaper?

Unpunished is a slow-moving police procedural, focusing heavily on the technical details of Maggie’s forensic work and the background story of the demise of the newspaper industry in our age of technology, which I generally found interesting but which at times slowed the story down to a point where I felt like skipping pages just to get on with it. I felt it needed a bit of careful editing at this point to keep up the pace. The narrative didn’t really grip me until Chapter 14, at which point there were enough bodies and unanswered questions hanging in the air for it to be intriguing.

When I requested Unpunished from Netgalley I was unaware that it was the second book in a series, and was somewhat puzzled by the references to Maggie and Jack’s shared secret past, which play a prominent part in the investigation and colour their professional relationship. Whilst Unpunished is a stand-alone novel as far as the plot is concerned, it took me a long time to work out the gist of the “secret” that binds Maggie and Jack together. Not fully understanding the dynamics between the duo somewhat marred my reading pleasure, though paradoxically it also served to keep me interested, especially since Maggie is prepared to sacrifice her professional integrity to tamper with evidence in order to help Jack. Why, why, WHY? Unfortunately, these questions were not fully answered here – I guess I will have to read the first part of the series – and Jack kept to the straight and narrow for the best part, not showing his true vigilante side the book hints at. Personally, I found the story lacking in suspense and an emotional bond with the main protagonists, who seemed to keep me at arms’ length at all times. I would have liked to get more of a feel for both Maggie and Jack, and the forces that drove them, in order to be able to picture them in my mind and care about them. All in all, I found Unpunished well written and researched, with an interesting background story and well constructed plot. Perhaps, had I read the first book in the series, Unpunished would have gripped me a bit sooner and held my attention a bit better. As a stand-alone novel, it just lacked an emotional connection for me, though I am intrigued enough by the character of Jack to pick up That Darkness to see what I missed.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a free electronic copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

UNPUNISHED is the second book in Lisa Black’s Gardiner and Renner series and it really brings Maggie and Jack into focus as fully developed characters to follow. The plot of this book can be read as a standalone, but the first book “That Darkness” should be read before this to understand the complicated history and stand-off between these two.
Forensic investigator, Maggie Gardiner is called to an apparent suicide of the copy editor of the Cleveland Herald, the struggling daily newspaper. Maggie notices an inconsistency and realizes that this suicide is really murder. Jack and his partner, Riley are assigned the case and already at the scene.
Homicide Detective Jack Renner is a serial killer. If the courts cannot keep the worst of the worst locked up and away from innocent citizens, Jack personally takes care of them ---permanently. Maggie is the only one who has been smart enough to figure out his secret. Their truce has held so far, but Maggie still has her doubts about him stopping his personal form of justice.
As another body of a Herald worker is found, Maggie and Jack have to work together to find the killer and figure out what is going on at the Herald.
This book gives a lot of information on the current state of print media in this country. Maggie takes us through the interesting steps of the forensics of the case which I am sure are realistic since that is Ms. Black’s specialty. The plot is fast paced and interesting throughout. Ms. Black has really breathed life into Maggie in this book. That was my only problem with the first book in this series and I am very happy with Maggie’s character development.
Maggie and Jack are great characters and I am looking forward to many more books in this series!
Thank you very much to Kensington Books and Net Galley for a free eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. It was great!

I've been given the chance from NetGalley to review Unpunished - Lisa Black's second book in the Maggie Gardiner series. I have not read the first book, so this review may benefit people who are looking at the novel as a whole, rather than part of a series.
The plot is one of a classic detective novel, only the hero is a rather grey police worker rather than an all mighty DC or DCI: Gardiner is a forensic expert who studies the crime scene and handles the post death technicalities. The other main character is Jack Renner, a homicide cop who's a vigilante serial killer "at night", but one with an ethical code of disposing only of the bad guys. If you had read "That Darkness" you would have known this by now and the fact that Gardiner is the only living soul who shares Jack's secret.
The mystery revolves around the murder of a copy editor at the Cleveland Herald, who is found hanging above the grinding wheels of the newspaper assembly line. When more newspaper employees are killed, Maggie and Jack continue their unholy partnership, in an effort to uncover the eluding killer.

I liked "Unpunished". It has the elements of a classic thriller, and Albeit it is secretly an exaggerated editorial advocating for the dying American news industry, it was still fun to see murders taking place above and under the printing press wheels. Sure the facts (told mainly by the suspects) were tedious and all too lecture-y, but the story is well written and like any good thriller you'll find it nearly impossible to guess who is the culprit.

The one thing that I thought the book lacked, and that's something I tend to look for in a series within the crime detective genre, is whether the novel can stand alone or not. And to be honest, it can't. I immediately wanted to find out more about the incident that entangled Maggie Gardiner with Jack Renner - and even though on its own that's not a bad thing - it still goes to show that if we take the element of their relationship out of "Unpunished", it might have been a bit boring and one dimensional.

Having said that, the killer-accomplice crime fighters are there, and "Unpunished" is interesting and gripping. I especially liked Gardiner as a CSI grey-worker who is the centre of things, and would have loved to see her character evolve a bit more... Luckily it's a series :-) 3 stars .. 3.5 on a better day.

Maggie Gardiner and Jack Renner had come to an uneasy alliance due to their past. Maggie is a studies the dead and Jack is a homicide detective on the same police force. Now they are both investigating a series of murders at the local newspaper, the Cleveland Herald. As more and more people from the paper are dropping dead it seems that someone has a vendetta against the employees of the paper. Can they stop the killer before he can murder more employees. Good read. I would like to thank the Publisher and net Galley for the chance to read this ARC.

Who is killing the staff on the Herald and why. This is for Maggie Gardiner, a forensic expert, and policeman Jack Renner to determine. I hadn't read the previous book but I don't think it is necessary to do so.
In quite a few places the book bored me - the long explanations of the death of printed newspapers and their working. It would have been a lot tighter story without it and a definite three stars.

Forensic analyst, Maggie Gardner, and police officer, Jack Renner, continue to solve crimes in this story. I read the first book in this series, and the second one does not disappoint. The setting for this story is a newspaper publishing firm (which I liked). After several deaths occur, Maggie and Jack begin their odyssey to figure out who is committing these horrible crimes. Lisa Black writes mysteries that keep you guessing until the end.

This is the first book by Lisa Black I have read, and I didn't realise that it was the second in a series. I wish I had known because I would have read the first one before starting this one, there would have been more of a frame of reference as the characters referred to events in the first book on a pretty regular basis. It CAN be read as a standalone but I think it is better to read these books in order.

People at a newspaper are getting killed. Why is this so and what can Maggie (a forensic tech) and Jack (a cop) do about this? And what is the connection that these two have?

This was a solid police procedural and I liked the portrayal of the characters, both main and secondary. There were also some details about the world of newspapers which I found very interesting, as I am a newspaper home delivery kind of girl. I personally would hate to see the end of the physical newspaper, despite also being very comfortable reading my news online at the same time.

As always, I enjoyed reading about the forensic side of things, this is one of the reasons I requested the book. I will be interested to read the next book in the series, because surely there will be one, right? This book ended on a satisfactory note, but there are questions in my mind about how this association of Maggie and Jack's is going to end. Lots of scope for an interesting book three, I think!

This was a recommended book from me.

I voluntarily reviewed an Advance Reader Copy of this book. Thank you to NetGalley and Kensington Publishing.

I received an e-ARC of this novel through NetGalley and Kensington Books. Thank you.

Having read the first book in this series (That Darkness) in April 2016, I was very pleased to see this second book released so quickly. It was nice not having to wait a year for the next in the series, which seems to often be the case. I was very glad to pick up the stories of Maggie Gardiner, a forensic scientist/tech, and Jack Renner, a police detective, a short while after they finished their last investigation. These are two intriguing characters and author Lisa Black does a good job of balancing the good/bad events in the lives of both. Jack has set himself up as a person who rights the wrongs society allows to go on for too long and now Maggie knows about what he does, but Jack has a hold over her if he wants to use it. Their relationship is complicated, to say the least, and investigating the suicide which quickly reveals itself to be a murder at the Cleveland, Ohio Herald newspaper leads them into other situations where Maggie has to wrestle with how much she can actually trust Jack to keep his word.

If you are like me, you will read the Dedication of this book by the author to the newspapers of America. And I understand and agree wholeheartedly with her in the feelings she has for the daily print newspaper. However, for me the descriptions of how the newspaper is actually printed and the many monologues by different characters about the purposes and the needs for print newspapers to continue took up too much of the space in this novel and caused me to lower my star rating to four stars this time. I agreed, I got it, I wanted to move on with the story, but especially those thoughts about reporting and investigative reporting in particular went on longer than was necessary from my viewpoint. I still liked the growth in the tension and atmosphere between Maggie and Jack so I read the entire book, but sadly found myself skimming through yet another explanation of why reporters for a print newspaper make all the difference in real news. There are several indications within this story that Maggie and Jack will return for another book because their secrets will be very hard to keep covered over for a long time. I look forward to reading that story when it is released.

A solid police procedural. Doesn't really live up to the "like Dexter" promise. I think it would've been better with more emphasis on that part of the story and less on the case.