Meg Gardiner, Meg Gardiner, Meg Gardiner...you SLAY me! Reading UNSUB a month or two ago just blew me away, and here you are again, with another heart-pounding, completely riveting novel featuring FBI profiler Caitlin Hendrix. What an amazing series this is turning out to be!!

In a little town called Solace, Texas, women are literally disappearing on Saturday nights. One moment they're there—on a concession line at a movie theater, in a mall parking lot, in their car stopped at a railroad crossing, even at home with their baby—and the next second, they're gone. There are no signs of struggle. Did these women go willingly?

Caitlin Hendrix, a rookie FBI agent recently assigned to the agency's Behavioral Analysis Unit, heads to Texas to help determine whether there's a serial killer preying on women in this town just outside Austin. When they find their first bodies, they discover a disturbing, gruesome sight—the women, both blonde, have been meticulously laid out in white, baby-doll nightgowns, with full makeup. Their wrists are slashed and they lay face up, almost like sleeping princesses, and their bodies are surrounded by Polaroid pictures of other victims yet to be found, posed in the same way.

As she and her colleagues try to make sense of just what kind of person would be the mastermind behind such a crime spree, the killer strikes again, outside of Solace, in order to throw the FBI off his trail. But with the help of a tip from a woman who has lived most of her life in fear, they find their man—a handsome, charismatic businessman who can gain a woman's trust in a split second, and isn't afraid to depend on a little subterfuge if necessary. He immediately identifies Caitlin's own demons, and tries to use them against her in an effort to disarm her.

The FBI finds themselves in a high-stakes game of cat and mouse once the killer uses his intellect and charm to make a fool of them. From Wyoming to Oklahoma to the Pacific Northwest, Caitlin and her colleagues try to gain the upper hand on this man before he kills again—and try to figure out just how he's able to get the information and advantages he needs. It's a race that could prove deadly to more than his usual victims, and one which could put Caitlin's mental state at risk as well.

This book, much like the first in this series, had me from page 1 and left me breathless until the very end. Gardiner is so skilled at giving you just enough evidence but leaving you in the same place as the FBI, so you aren't frustrated by knowing more than the crime fighters do. There are some terrific action scenes in this book, worthy of the best thrillers, and Gardiner also pays close attention to character development.

In UNSUB, more attention was paid to Caitlin's relationship with ATF agent Sean Rawlins, and I like the interaction between the two of them. I missed that in this book, although clearly there are some plot points which I guess are setting up the third book in the series. (Plus, Gardiner makes Sean sound seriously sexy, so that's always a welcome distraction from the profiling work, lol!)

This is truly one of the best series I've read in some time, and I will breathlessly await the next book in the series, even though my wait will be a little longer than it was between books 1 and 2! Into the Black Nowhere is just excellent. You can't go wrong with these books!!

NetGalley and PENGUIN GROUP Dutton provided me an advance copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review. Thanks for making this available!

The second of Gardiner’s UNSUB series. Fast, dark, and thrilling FBI procedural. I’ll be going back to her other novels for sure.

I couldn't put this book down. I was worried it would be too much like the first one and that the series would become predictable. I could not have been more wrong! This story is paced differently than the first, but that's a good thing! I cannot wait for the next installment!

I am a huge Meg Gardiner fan and always have high expectations for the plot and dialogue in her books. This book meets all the criteria and is terrific. The characters are strong and many twists hold your interest. For any fan of intrigue or romantic suspense.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for this review copy in exchange for an honest review.

I had read the first novel at the recommendation of a friend and it didn’t disappoint. I was inspired by that to see where this went and what the author decided to follow up with. I wasn’t disappointed this time either. Inspired by Bundy was interesting and I can see some of the parallels via a loose inspiration outline but in reality I was reminded somewhat, also, of The Zodiac Killer incidents at times too. Without wanting to spoil much I didn’t let the middle of the book dampen anything and still found myself wanting another book in the series.

Unsub by Meg Gardiner was one of my favorite books of 2017, and absolutely my favorite thriller of the year, so I was understandably looking forward to Into the Black Nowhere a great deal. While the second book in the series didn’t have me frantically turning pages the way Unsub did, it is an incredibly solid second book in the series, and does an excellent job setting this up as a series versus a standalone first book or a duology.

This book picks up with enough time having passed after the events of Unsub that Caitlin Hendrix is now working for the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit. Her team is called to Texas where women have been disappearing at an alarming rate. At about the halfway point of this book, I was starting to get curious about how the author was going to continue the story through the second half as I felt like the storyline was wrapping up. Without providing too many details (because the fun of a thriller is not knowing what happens!), the book only picked up from there. While I thought Caitlin had been pretty well developed in Unsub (considering the fast paced plot), Into the Black Nowhere has a pace that slows down enough to let readers get inside Caitlin’s head a little bit more.

The pacing of this book is not as frenetic as that of Unsub, but by no means is it a slow story. The ending leaves readers certain there’s more to come in Caitlin’s story, and I think that if Meg Gardiner can continue with what she has done so far with these books, this could be a series that has longevity and can maintain an audience. I will be anxiously awaiting the next.

I loved the first book in Meg Gardiner's UNSUB series, and was so excited to read the second. It did not disappoint... so many twists, turns, and intrigue. Rooting for Caitlin the entire time as she tries to balance work, catch a psychopath, and a her long-distance relationship with Sean. I loved that the mystery unraveled the way it did -- never quite figuring out the entire story until it smacked you in the face (like it did to Caitlin). A wonderful read -- could not put it down. Hope there's many more UNSUB stories to tell.

I can do nothing but praise this wonderful thriller, the second from Meg Gardner in this series. She manages to take what could have been a routine story and make it edge-of-the-seat thrilling, leaving the reader in suspense, especially in the last part of the book when I literally did not know how it would end (despite it being only the second in a series - usually a tipoff). But Gardner goes even further by giving the characters depth and shape rarely found in this genre. This is a tour-de-force, and I cannot wait to read her next effort.

This book actually had me holding my breath, not knowing which way it would end.Ms Gardiner has written another wonderful thriller. The story kept building momentum all the way to the end. I hope she will continue with this series as the ending suggests.

Review: INTO THE BLACK NOWHERE by Meg Gardiner
(UNSUB #2)

In this second mystery in Meg Gardiner' s new (2017) series, Caitlin Hendrix, former Alameda County, California, Sheriff's Detective, is fresh from both victory and tragedy, and the continuing identify puzzle still disturbs her. At the end of UNSUB, she was instrumental in wrapping up the long-standing case which had trapped and ruined her father, Detective Mack Hendrix. Yet the puzzle remained of an additional, unidentified, killer--the late Prophet's protege.

Tapped for the FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit, Caitlin is assigned to a new serial abduction case in Texas. As the Prophet in UNSUB bore overtones of San Francisco's Zodiac Killer, the killer in INTO THE BLACK NOWHERE has resemblances to that smooth, charmingly charismatic, vicious killer Ted Bundy. Readers seeking a skin-crawling villain will find that chillingly done right here. Killers who are upfront are bad enough; but those who can charm, who are emotional illusionists, are far more dangerous, because nearly invisible until it's too late for the prey.

In Into the Black Nowhere, Meg Gardiner brings us a killer inspired by none other than Ted Bundy. He’s suave, he’s charming, he’s clever…and he’s got absolutely no conscience.

This is a roller coaster ride of a thriller. The body count is high and it’s devastating – at times, even heart breaking. Caitlin, our FBI agent, is determined, smart, and damaged. And facing off against our perverse killer just may damage her even more. I loved Caitlin and even I found myself charmed by our killer. It was far too easy to see how he managed to take his victims.

While the search for our killer is fascinating, what happens after that is a real knuckle biting, popcorn chomping read. You simply won’t want to look away from the page.

An immensely satisfying thriller that I simply loved!

*ARC Provided via Net Galley

A young, but sharp FBI agents gets a trial by fire when she’s assigned to a task force tracking a serial killer in Texas. Women are disappearing into thin air and the FBI has been called in by local authorities to determine what kind of monster they’re dealing with. Agent Caitlin Hendrix and her team find the first body after a dog brings a piece of bloodied clothing home to his owner. Another body is discovered not far away, surrounded by Polaroid pictures of other women, all posed, all dead. Readers will know who the killer is about half way into the book, the tensions comes from the dance that Caitlin and the killer perform as she tries to get information from him without letting him inside her own mind. Gardiner, as always, does a masterful job creating a strong, determined heroine and a seriously creepy killer