Another great novel from T R Ragan which starts explosively and doesn't let up throughout.
Certainly action packed with an excellent plot that all comes together neatly at the conclusion.
A good use of my time on a wet, windy weekend.

Non stop thrills and chills! My first by Ragan and so happy to find a new author to read. Had a lot of plot twists that made sense but also kept you guessing!

I love TR Ragans books and this novel does not dissapoint. Great characters and interesting plot. Highly recommend

Great story by T.R. Ragan. Fantastic!! Love all the books by this author!! Really thrilling read, great characters and an enjoyable story. Highly recommend to others!!

Ragan's newest novel is exciting and intriguing from the very beginning. Readers are drawn in to the mystery surrounding Ben Morrison and Jessie Cole's sister Sophia, wondering along with the characters just what happened that fateful night ten years ago. The only downside to the novel is the naiveté of Jessie Cole. As an experienced Private Investigator she makes poor choices and gets herself into situations that she should know better. She also seems to have trouble putting clues together and misses very telling signs of what is going on. Despite this, readers will race to finish the book, wanting to know the outcome and see justice served. This book is not for the squeamish as there are very gruesome and bloody scenes of torture and murder.

its a very interesting start to a crime series but sadly to me it was a bit too obvious that the author was building something in this book that is bigger than the book itself so that in my eyes a lot of this book felt a bit too short since it clearly is just a build up, an introduction and a way into something more.
which for me personally is not the right way to start a series. The first book to me has to be strong and basically a standalone and be so unforgettable to/for me that i can't think of anything else but wanting to continue reading about the characters and their next adventure.
this book sadly did not do that at all and so for me it didn't work. But i am sure that there is an audience for this book that will love it.

PI Jessie Cole is having a bad day. She’s following a guy that’s been accused of stalking, but he turns on her and starts shooting! Jessie shoots back, but he has blanks in his gun, and she’s got real bullets in hers. He’s taken to the hospital in critical condition, and she’s taken into custody.

She glanced at the clock. “I need to go, Detective. I was supposed to pick up my niece ten minutes ago.”

“Oh,” he said, angling his head just so. “You have to go? Well, that’s too bad.” He jabbed a finger in the air. “You’re a piece of work. You shot someone. And not for the first time. You’re not going anywhere.”

A shiver of anxiety crawled up her spine. “I did nothing wrong,” she said, stiffening. “I understand the laws regarding the use of deadly force. I was defending myself and others against a forcible and atrocious crime.”

“And yet after everything you went through a few years ago, you shot the man anyhow.”


“My life was in imminent danger.” She tapped a finger on the table for emphasis. “I saved ‘innocent bystanders from unavoidable danger of death.’”

The detective frowned. Clearly he was not impressed by the fact she’d memorized parts of the California laws concerning self-defense.

“There were people everywhere,” she said, surprised by the desperation in her voice.

Obviously, she was defending herself, but he’s claiming that she was stalking him! Luckily, a friend comes to her aid and convinces Jessie’s estranged father to put up his house for her bail. Now, Jessie must get to the bottom of this so-called stalker (who also happens to be a criminal defense lawyer) and clear her own name before she’s framed up for attempted murder.

Luckily, she’s got cop and former flame Colin Greyson on her side. They’ve got a steamy history: they were together when he was still married, but when his soon-to-be ex-wife showed up at the door announcing she was pregnant, Jessie became convinced the right thing to do was for Colin to go back to his wife and make it work. They stayed together for five years before breaking up for good. Jessie and Cole met up by chance a little less than a year ago and became friends again. Colin wants more, but Jessie has her foot firmly on the brakes—even though she still has feelings for him.

Journalist Ben Morrison is eager to dig into the disappearance of a young woman who went missing 10 years ago: Jessie’s younger sister Sophie (whose 14-year-old daughter Olivia she now raises). When he calls up Jessie hoping to talk, she’s reticent. But Ben has secrets of his own. He’s a survivor of a car crash that left him with profound memory loss, and he drops quite a bombshell on Jessie: he may have known her sister.

Meanwhile, a truly diabolical killer is keeping people prisoner in his underground lair, and Colin is trying to track this psycho down before they find another body. I say lair because it really conjures up the perfect picture of one, complete with cages where he imprisons people and torture devices he uses freely on his poor captives or makes them use on each other. The media is calling this guy the Heartless Killer, but heartless doesn’t even begin to cover it. He’s as cruel and sick as they come, and he’s got a new captive to add to his underground human zoo:

He already knew it was Erin Hayes. When he’d found her on the side of the road with a flat tire, she’d accepted a ride, which he’d found surprising. Getting someone inside the car was usually the most difficult part. After drugging her and bringing her to the farmhouse, he’d looked through her purse. Her ID had provided her name and address. A search through social media had done the rest. But he would ask her questions anyhow because conducting interviews was half the fun. He thought of it as the beginning of the end.

Erin Hayes is no wilting flower, though, and she plans to give this sicko a run for his money.

Jessie must juggle single motherhood, her job—finding missing persons (her specialty)—and the lingering pain of her missing sister. It’s a helluva lot to deal with, and the smart, relatable Jessie does it with aplomb. Ragan knows how to write a rip-roaring thriller that starts out strong and rarely falters. She’s a crackerjack storyteller, never sacrificing character development for pacing, although this one trots by at lightspeed.

If you like serial killer thrillers that genuinely thrill and have plenty of depth, now’s the time to discover Jessie Cole and T.R. Ragan. Dare you not to read this one in one sitting!

Thank you to Netgalley, the author and the publisher for the opportunity to tread this book in return for my honest opinion.

Another great series to read! I loved this author's Lizzie Gardner series, so I was super excited to read this book. It was great; Jessie Cole is one of my new favorite characters. I don't think I loved it as much as the previous books, but it was an interesting story, lots of suspense with a great ending. Cannot wait to read the next book in this series.

Synopsis wise, it’s sounds like it’s got a lot going for it. But in reality, Jessie is unfortunately pretty dull for a series lead. Her 14-year-old niece, who is only a background player, had more of a recognizable personality, where Jessie came across as flat; humourless and without passion.

The stalker gets a disproportionate amount of attention considering the other big things going on in the novel, and it’s not even an emotionally enticing plot line. The stalker is never spoken to, the risk of him losing his life – and the legal ramifications on Jessie – is never presented as a palpable threat. Jessie speaks to a couple stalking victims, but their stories are mostly throwaways as they are never seen or heard from again for the rest of the book.

The serial killer spends most of his page-time supervising people in a cage. He can be a little sadistic and dark, but ultimately I found his evil-doer shtick to be pretty weak in it’s execution. The girls in the cages get most of the POV in the novel, but there’s only so much “she’s scared in a cage” that I can really take, without a ramping up in action, before it becomes redundant.

It didn’t really feel like we were moving towards anything. Even when bodies are discovered, it happens out-of-scene and the information is relayed after the fact.

echnically the writing is fine. There didn’t seem to be much in the way of plot filler; the author knew where she wanted the story to go and how she wanted to set it up for the sequel.

But at the same time, I felt like there was an “arm’s length” approach to the writing. In that I mean, the reader is never brought into the plot. We’re kept on the outside looking in. The novel heavily consists of Jessie and the reporter, Ben, talking to people about things that happened in the past, again out-of-scene, instead of being involved in things that are happening now.

This kind of crime fiction just isn’t for me. It’s a lot of telling, instead of showing.

And how each story thread was wrapped up felt like a letdown. Over 300 pages of buildup, only for things to be resolved out-of-scene and relayed to the reader after the fact? Arm's length.

There’s something missing in this novel for me. It didn’t connect. It’s not a bad book, but any means. It’s just ok. It appears to have worked for many of my friends on Goodreads, but for me it was lacking in emotional connection and actual thrills.

Thomas & Mercer and NetGalley provided me with an electronic copy of Her Last Day. I was under no obligation to review this book and my opinion is freely given.

Jessie Cole is a private investigator with a tendency to get a little too involved in her cases, hence her need to video record when she is on a case. After a shootout in the park, Jessie finds herself in legal trouble. When she is hired to find a missing young woman, will Jessie determine that there is more to the disappearance than anyone knew? Will help in the form of her boyfriend, a reporter with ties to her past, and her niece assure that Jessie will be able to put together the missing pieces in time?

I had some issues with Her Last Day, so I do not feel that I would be able to recommend it to other readers. The backstory of the characters is too up front, not giving readers enough time to know them in the present before going to past actions. The book feels like it is missing a couple of chapters in the beginning, as the story feels like it is starting in the middle. The book also suffers from too many ideas and too many plot lines, which ruins the continuity of the story. Jessie Cole is a strong and determined woman, but Her Last Day does not show off her skills and abilities as well as it should. I might be willing to give the character one last chance, as I feel that her story is yet to be told.

Wow - have been a T.R. Ragan from the beginning and this one did NOT disappoint! With some pretty original twists & turns, this tale keeps you drawn in, flipping those pages! Thanks to Netgalley & Thomas & Mercer for the ARC - check this one out, y’all!

I really loved the Faith McCann series so I thought I'd give this one a whirl and turned out to be a hit as well. This book was a fast paced, psychological thriller that was a definite page turner. We follow Jessie, a PI with a past -guardian of her 14 year old niece. There's a lot of different plot lines throughout this book, a gruesome murderer is on the loose referred to as the Heartless killer , Jessie's sister has a mysterious disappearance which is something she's been looking into for years. There's a reporter also digging around trying to find out what happened to Jessie's sister and did we mention Jessie is semi dating a police officer named Colin who is also working on the Heartless killer case? As these people's stories are intertwined we find out more throughout the book which is a good suspenseful mystery. I definitely recommend it if you are into this genre.

Her Last Day was a fantastic and thrilling read with amazing characters and several storylines that come together in a riveting conclusion.

Ten years ago Jessie Cole’s sister Sophie disappeared without a trace, never to be seen or heard from again. As a result of her obsession over finding Sophie, Jessie became a private investigator who makes her living finding missing persons. Ten years ago Ben Morrison was involved in a horrific car accident that left him physically scarred with no memory from prior to the accident. However when he sees an image of Sophie, Ben knows without a doubt that he recognizes her but with no idea how. While Jessie and Ben begin to reinvestigate the case, a serial murderer lurks in the background drawing closer waiting for the right time to make his move.

Jessie has spent the years since Sophie’s disappearance devoted to researching her sister’s case while raising Sophie’s daughter Olivia. After years of obsession, she realized that she couldn’t keep devoting so much time to Sophie’s case if she was going to give Olivia the attention she needed. As a result she started her private investigator business and became somewhat well known after she found a missing fifteen year old that everyone else had given up on. After a shooting she was involved in a few years prior to the book, Jessie has memorized the laws concerning firing in self defense and she wears a GoPro camera at all times when out on her jobs.

After his accident ten years ago, Ben was left with third degree burns on over half of his body in addition to his amnesia. He ended up falling in love with and marrying his trauma nurse and the two have two children ages eight and nine. Ben works as an investigative reporter covering crime which is a job he held prior to his accident. After seeing an image of Sophie on a rerun of a cold case TV show, he instantly recognizes her and gets in touch with Jessie.

There are a few major side characters outside of people at the center of the cases Jessie is working. Olivia, now a very intelligent fourteen year old, enjoys helping her aunt with her cases and wants to follow in her footsteps and become a private investigator. At the beginning of the book, Olivia rescues a dog that was hit by a car and names him Higgins. Higgins was an incredibly sweet dog who becomes very protective of his new family and I enjoyed watching him get his happy ending. Colin is a homicide detective working the Heartless Killer serial murderer case and is Jessie’s former boyfriend. Colin and Jessie’s relationship was a surprisingly healthy one and I enjoyed the possibility of more for them at the end of the book.

There are four major storylines throughout the book; a stalker, Sophie’s disappearance, a missing woman, and the Heartless Killer case. The stalker case is the one most on the back burner as the events unfold at the beginning/end of the book while Jessie is not distracted by the other cases. Then there is Ben and Jessie’s investigation into Sophie’s disappearance which went in a few surprising directions. Next Jessie is hired by a man to find his missing daughter who has schizophrenia. Finally, there is the Heartless Killer case that Colin is investigating which follows a killer who has been terrorizing the area for six years. The author did an amazing job tying together some of the cases and I enjoyed how everything unfolded.

Her Last Day ended up being an amazing read and I’m looking forward to the next book in the series. I definitely recommend the book for anyone looking for a good crime thriller.

I love TR Ragan books! I also listened to this audio, which was fantastic! Jessie was a great character as a private investigator, looking for a woman who suffered from schizophrenia as well as still looking for Jessie’s sister who’d disappeared 10 years before, with the help of reporter Ben Morrison, who had known or met Jessie’s sister Sophie but he was in a car accident 10 years ago and had retrograde amnesia so he couldn’t remember. Olivia Cole, Jessie’s 14 year old niece was an excellent character, as was Colin, Jessie’s boyfriend, who was a homicide detective.

Her Last Day has twists, turns, and surprises combined with a fast moving story with lots of action and intense suspense. T. R. Ragan's novels always excel at character development. And with author Ragan you do not have to wait a year for the next novel in the series because she releases a new novel every 6 or 7 months. As usual for Ragan's novels Kate Rudd narrates superbly.

4.5 Stars rounded up to 5

I love T.R. Ragan's books. I know when I get one of her books, I am going to like it, enjoy it and rip right through it with pulse racing speed. This one did not fail to hit it out of the park for me again.

There were so many plot twists and angles going on that I was mesmerized throughout the book.

Definitely a great read for me.

Thanks to Thomas & Mercer and Net Galley for providing me with a free e-galley in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.

Thanks a million Netgalley and Bookouture for allowing me to read this book. As always a brilliant book. Twists and turns right from the start that had me gripped from the start. I would highly recommend it.

Thank you very much to NetGalley and Bookouture for the advance copy of Her Last Day in return for an honest review.
Private Investigator Jessie Cole and crime writer Ben Morrison set out to This was my first book by T.R. Ragan but it definitely won't be my last. There were several plot lines going on at once and it kept me gripped all the way through and while I found some of the scenes a little bit too gruesome for my liking I loved this book and highly recommend it.

4.5 stars

P.I. Jessie Cole and crime reporter Ben Morrison search for clues to a mystery buried in their own pasts, only to discover sometimes the past is better off buried.

Everyone is talking about the Heartless Killer. Parents had been worrying and lecturing their kids about the serial killer on the loose for years now. Mostly they said to stay alert, never walk home alone, and of course not to talk to strangers. The killer was known to choose his victims at random, taking multiple victims before disappearing for months. His victims were tortured for months in a cold dark cell, in some creepy man's basement. Some of the victims were so tired of being tortured that they killed themselves. One hung himself and another had her husband kill her.

The Cole Sisters were born and raised in Sacramento. Sophie Cole disappeared. Her older sister Jessie Cole never treturned to school to get her degree. Because she never stopped looking for her sister. For the first two years she worked closely with the police. Then she became a private investigator ten years later after her sister disappeared. P.I. Jessie Cole and reporter Ben Morrison each suffered a tragedy that changed their lives and now these two strangers are about to share a nightmare.

T.R. Rayon is a new author for me. I will definitely be reading more of this author and this is the first book of a new series and I cant wait for the next one. This book was one hell of a ride. It moves at a thrilling pace with enough tension and suspense to keep the pages turning. When I read it at night I actually would check all the doors and windows to make sure they were locked. This book was super freaking creepy. It gave me the chills. It was so gripping.

I loved the characters and they really add to the story. The author made the characters come to life. It is very well written with twists and turns. There are several different mysteries going on. This book will grab you straight from the beginning and won't let go until the end. I recommend this series to Serial Killer thriller lovers.
I want to thank Netgalley, Thomas & Mercer, and T.R. Ragan for the copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Ten years had passed since her sister's disappearance, the event that shaped her and her niece Olivia's lives. Not a day went by that Jessie didn't think about her sister and wonder where she was.

Jessie has moved forward with her life along with her niece's Olivia as a private investigator until a reporter Ben requests an interview with her to discuss her sister Sophie's disappearance. Ten years ago he was in a terrible accident that left him burned and without a memory of who he was. However, seeing Sophie's face, he knows that he knows her. Together they go back to where Sophie was last seen and with more questions than answers, Jessie becomes unsure of Ben's motives. Jessie is not one to give up, with a new case of a missing daughter, and her own trouble with the law, she turns to detective Colin who is working the Heartless Killer case. A serial killer leaving a trail of victims that are random at best.

With many story lines and characters, Jessie is at the heart of each one. With her determination and not losing hope for her clients, family, and friends. It was easy to follow with the tension of a great thriller and the heart of a woman who does not give up.

A Special Thank You to Thomas Mercer and Netgalley for the ARC and the opportunity to post an honest review.

HER LAST DAY by T.R. RAGAN is an engaging, intense, and a fast-paced psychological thriller novel that I thoroughly enjoyed from start to finish.

T.R. Ragan delivers an intriguing & multi-layered story here with likable characters that was told through multiple POV’s with each one bringing their own unique voice and mystery to the story, that I found extremely exciting, interesting and compelling to read.

In addition to reading this book, I purchased myself a copy of the audiobook and I thoroughly enjoyed the performance by Kate Rudd and thought she delivered the perfect voice for the characters to make this an enjoyable and entertaining read.

Thank you so much to NetGalley, Thomas & Mercer and T.R. Ragan for the opportunity to read an advanced copy of this book in exchange for a review!!