Great thriller which I could not put down. Brilliant characters, and twists and turns. Highly recommend to others!

Lisa Marie Redmond is such a good author. This was a great read and I was so happy to get the chance to review another one of her books. It kept me interested throughout the entire book and I finished it in 2 nights

A suspenseful fast-paced story you can't wait to finish. I highly recommend A Means to An End.

The story is about Lauren, a cold case detective returning to work months after being stabbed by a fellow officer.
The body of a young woman has been found in the same woods as a murder victim from one of Lauren's most horrifying cases. It doesn't take long for Lauren to be back at square one confronting David Spencer, the quietly deranged man she could never prove was a killer.

She convinces the police chief to put together a task force to uncover the connections between the brutal slaying of both women and the murder of two cops. But things go south quickly, forcing Lauren into a deadly game that she can't afford to lose. A riveting story that is worth the read.

Don’t you love the feeling of returning to a series and a character you already know? A Means to an End is the third book in the Cold Case Investigation series. Lauren is a cold case detective in Buffalo NY.

This is a series you’ll enjoy more if you read them in order - while the books have their own plots there is also an overarching story. This continues a lot of that story so you’ll be glad to have the background.

I loved getting back into this space with Lauren but for me the pacing was a little off in this one. I was really surprised to see how close I was to the end of the book at one point for where we were in the story. I’m glad the fourth book is already out and I can jump right into it!

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the free ebook.

Lauren Riley is a dedicated police officer. She returns to duty as soon as she has recovered from an injury caused by a fellow police officer only to discover that a young woman has been murdered and her body was found in the same woods where Lauren discovered the body of one of her most horrifying cases. The man charged with that crime is in prison, but she was never truly convinced of his guilt. Now that case has opened up again and is linked to this new investigation. Will she find the killer the second time around. Fast paced and well thought out, this tale willnot disappoint fans of murder mysteries and thrillers.

Murder is not over until the killer stops deriving pleasure from the crime

Buolo Police Cold Case Detective Lauren Riley returns along with her nemesis David Spencer – for the past year and a half David Spencer has been dominating her life. Time has not been kind to Lauren, she was stabbed by another cop, collapsing her lung and has gone from a blue-eyed, honey-blond waif to just a shell of herself in a matter of weeks. She has gone from strikingly beautiful to barely average with one stab of a knife. However, rather than mourn the loss of her good looks, she takes pride in it as the price of surviving and returns to work full time even though she was not yet fully recovered. She and her partner Detective Shane Reese are called to a scene where a young woman’s body has been found not fifty yards from where the body of another young girl was found – the ex-girlfriend of David Spencer.

The cop who stabbed her and stole her Murder book – the handwritten and typed log of all the Cold Case homicides from the last fifty years – was arrested but his older brother was found murdered in his home and some people think that Lauren had a hand in it. This does not make her life easy when she is placed on the Cop Killer Task Force to find the killers of two policemen but she is not one to shy away from adversity. Detective Riley does her job and she does it well in addition to working towards her final showdown with David Spencer.

I enjoyed returning to characters that I had met before and hope to meet them in the future again to see where life’s journey has taken them.

Saphira

Breakaway Reviewers received a copy of the book to review.

What a nice third book in this installment. I read it over the summer, but had to put it away when fall came. I finally had the chance to finish it. Even puting it away for a few months did not make me forget the story. Picking it up again was as I had never let it down in the first place.

I would love to continue reading this installment and hope to follow Lauren on her next adventure. Hopefully with a more stable lovelife that were hinted to in this book.

Received an ARC from Netgalley in exchange for a honest review. I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own

Good book. action, great characters, well written fast paced police drama. A great book to cozy up with on the weekend

In Means to an End Redmond wraps up her trilogy of Lauren Riley, the Buffalo Cold Case detective. Lauren’s been haunted by her role in getting David Spencer acquitted and is determined that he will not hurt another girl. As in the earlier novels, there are murders of some around the female detective that result in questions arising about her possible involvement. In this installment, Lauren is assigned to a special Task Force and will be working without her trusty partner who’s always had her back. This causes a rift between the pair but Lauren is driven to close the case on Spencer and won’t let anything deter her.

The book ratchets up the action and the suspense as Lauren conducts her investigation while some on the Task Force thwart her. New characters are introduced and add some excitement but it’s really Lauren’s story of her dogged determination to bring Spencer to justice. Redmond does a great job of bringing the case to an end but she leaves enough of an opening that readers will be clamoring for more of Lauren’s escapades. Many of us hope we will get to hear more about this strong, troubled, resilient policewoman and her fellow detectives.

Lauren Riley is back to work after recovering from a stab wound she received while solving a case. A body is found in the woods where another body had been previously found, and Lauren knows the murderer is David Spencer. Unfortunately, she has not been able to prove David Spencer’s guilt, and because of that she knows that he is active and murdering again and again. She has lost some credibility with her peers at the police station, and isn’t in a good place.

This is the third installment in Lissa Marie Redmond’s Cold Case Investigation series, and Riley is willing to risk her life to put David Spencer behind bars. The problem is that there are obstacles every step of the way, and the harder she tries, the more obstacles there are. The characters are well-developed, and Lauren Riley is a great character, with traits that we would expect from a real detective who is dedicated to her job. Lauren has personal problems, too, like everyone, and those problems present some difficulties while she is trying to solve cases.

Redmond knows how to tell a good story, and this is a good one. She has a way of building suspense and keeping her readers on the edges of their seats. Lauren Riley is often in danger, and in this novel, because of her unpopularity on the force, must find ways to get herself out of danger almost by herself.

Readers of this good series will welcome this third installment, and will enjoy the building suspense and twists and turns in this novel. They will also anticipate the subsequent novels to come.

Special thanks to NetGalley for supplying a review copy of this book.

A Means to An End is about a cold case detective by the name of Lauren. When she returns to work after being stabbed by a fellow police officer, her troubles are not over. A young woman found dead in the same woods as one of Lauren’s cases is suspect. Lauren is forced into a deadly game that she can’t afford to lose. Excellent book. I recommend it to all readers who enjoy a good mystery. Well-written plot with many characters, good and bad. Very tense ending, but I couldn’t put the book down. Thank you to Net Galley for providing an advanced reader’s copy of this book for review.

Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher and the author for the opportunity to read this book in return for a review based upon my honest opinion.

This is the third book in the Cold Case series; this could easily be read as a stand-alone book, but I feel that anyone reading this book would read the first two books because they are great. Detective Lauren Riley and her partner Shane Reese are hunting a killer, a man who Lauren is quickly becoming obsessed with. Her obsession is seen by others on the force and they think she has blinders on and cannot see past her own theory, but she feels it kin her bones that she is right. This book was a slow burn at first,enough to keep you reading and interested but then all of a sudden, boom, you are hooked. There were revelations in this book that surprised Lauren more than it will the reader. Lauren gets a task force assigned but then she goes off on her own when peril gets much to close to those around her and the ending, well, what can I say about that, other than, hurry up with the next book in this series!

Great book, great series, looking dforward to the next one!

A Means to An End is the third novel in Lissa Marie Redmond's Cold Case series. The major disclaimer for this series is that you must read them in order. The books build on each other so if you skip a book or read them out of order you will be missing the knowledge you need to understand the character relationships and plot.

The main character is Detective Lauren Riley. She and her partner, Shane Reese, are the cold case division of Buffalo homicide. This novel focuses on Laurens relationship to David Spencer and brings everything together that we have learned and has occurred over the last two books.

This book feels very much like the culmination of this story...but it might not be. Can Lauren and Shane connect the cop murders with the missing girls? Is there suspect really the murderer or is Lauren developing a vendetta that isn't valid?

I personally love this series and I think a big part of that comes from the fact that Lissa Marie Redmond is a former cold case detective in Buffalo so there seems to be an underlying authenticity (too maybe not everything) but the base workings and processes in the book. I can't wait for the next novel to find out what happens next for Riley.

Lauren Riley is a cold case detective in Buffalo New York. When she returns back to work after being stabbed by another officer, she is still obsessed with David Spencer.
A suspect in a previous murder, Lauren actually helped acquit him while she was working as a private investigator.
Then she realized the young man was a clever, ruthless psychopath.
Lauren and her partner Reese are called to a murder scene. The body of a young woman is found, dumped in the woods, in the same area as another victim.
A task force is formed to investigate and Lauren is asked to join. Of course she begins to track David, consumed with the job of proving he's a killer.
This book started very slowly for me. It didn't help that the formatting of the ebook was missing the letter F in most of the words and it was especially confusing at first. Once I got past that, the action began to interest me.
Lauren wasn't a very likable character, her fixation on David Spencer was like a mania and it came between her and the relationships of her partner and colleagues.
But I also admired her determination and grit.
This was book three in the series and although it can be read as a stand alone, I think that reading the series in order is extremely beneficial to the character development and backstory.
I have purchased the other two books in the series so I can go back and read them.
Thank you to Midnight Ink for the e-ARC via NetGalley.
3.5 stars, rounded up to 4 stars.

Cold Case Detective Lauren Riley is back on the job after being stabbed in the line of duty. She and her partner, Shane Reese, find themselves investigating a body dumped in the woods in the exact same site as a victim from one of Lauren's previous cases. She quickly recognizes the tie to David Spencer, a clever kid whom Lauren helped get off on a murder charge while she was working as a Private Investigator. Once he was acquitted, Lauren realized he was a cold-blooded psychopath, and she's been haunted by it (and him) ever since. Lauren is put on a Task Force investigating the killing--and the unsolved murders of two cops--but she quickly realizes she may be the only one who can stop David, for once and for all.

I really like the character of Lauren Riley--she's a tough yet vulnerable cop who knows her stuff, and I've been following her since the beginning of this series. This book tied up some things, but left others hanging, and I have to admit, I hope there is a book four out there? I also have to say, to prove my devotion to Lauren, my ARC copy had issues with the "f"s in the book (e.g. Sheriff = Sheri; office = offce; files = les, etc.) and none of the text messages were in there, and I still read it, because I needed to know what was happening to Lauren. A final copy will be fine--just pointing out how much I care about these characters!

We have a small cast here, but do get some new blood, mainly in the form of the task force gents. Two, of course, suspect Lauren for the cop killings that happened in the second novel, but one, Jack Nolan, seems to be a good guy. Poor Lauren, she can't catch a break. I would mention that this book will make more sense if you've read the first two. Redmond explains things, but the backstory is easier to comprehend (and those first two books are good). Still, don't let that scare you away from this one.

These cases are personal for Lauren, and I found some of this book stressful, as I care about her and Reese, and I was worried about them both! If you're less invested, you may not be as concerned. No matter what, it's an interesting book--we think we know our suspect (David), but we're never quite sure, and there's a lot of angst and intrigue in trying to track him down. I always enjoy how the city of Buffalo is almost another character in these books, and it's very clear that Redmond knows her police procedures.

"She'd been waging a one-person war against him, and she was losing. She had to take this further before anyone else got hurt."

Overall, I definitely recommend this one, especially if you've read the earlier books, enjoy a good police procedural, or are on the hunt for a strong female protagonist. Redmond's stories are always interesting and sure to suck you in. 4 stars.

Buffalo cold case detective Lauren Riley is back at work but she is far being normal after surviving a knife attack by another cop in her last case. Now a young woman's body has been found in the same woods as murder victim Amber Anderson. Lauren convinces the police commander to put together a task force to uncover the connections these murders and those of two other cops. But Lauren quickly finds she has as many foes on the task force team as allies, and she has also alienated her cold case partner Shane Reese. When a third woman goes missing and Reese is critically wounded by an unknown gunman, Lauren's obsession with David Spencer forces her to go rogue to find the elusive killer on her own.

I received an eARC from Netgalley and Midnight Ink with no requirements for a review. I voluntarily read this book and provided this review.

This series isn't like most with respect to being able to read each book standalone. Instead, it continues the story which began in book one, namely the aftermath of the acquittal of David Spencer and the obsession catching him that has plagued Lauren ever since her part in this. So, with this in mind, please do start from book one and read in order. Also, like the other books in the series, the story does not fully end here...!
So in this, her third outing, Lauren has just returned to work after recovering from the stabbing at the hands of one of her own in the last book. Still troubled about what has been happening, her world is once again blow apart when the body of a young woman is discovered in an all too familiar place, sending shudders up her spine once again. Pleading her case to her bosses, she finally manages to persuade them to set up a task force to investigate. But will it be a case of be careful what you wish for as she still faces battles with those supposedly on her side?
This latest instalment had all the elements I need to make a good book a great read. Yes, to be honest, I am not the biggest fan of unresolved stuff left dangling at the end of a book but this series is good enough to put all that aside for the moment and just sit back and enjoy the ride. Enough concludes to make this a good episode in its own right but it's obvious that there's more still to come. And I'm really looking forward to finding out what!
It's fast paced and the story gets on with itself very nicely without any superfluous padding or waffle. There is enough description to colour the action without distracting from what is going on. Returning characters develop nicely throughout and the new ones fit in well.
All in all, another winner which I have no hesitation in recommending to fans of the genre. My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

Lauren Riley, a detective with the Buffalo, NY police force, is tough and she’s been through a lot. She’s survived a stabbing that occurred at the police station, she’s been accused of the murder of another detective who was also her ex-husband, and she was involved in helping acquit a cold-blooded murderer, David Spencer. I would say that it’s about time her life turned around. In this book, Lauren is convinced that Spencer is responsible for the disappearance and murder of several women. Now, she just has to prove it to fellow officers and supervisors. After a task force is created to investigate these cases, Lauren is determined to bring Spencer to justice. But, at what cost to her and her colleagues?

A Means to an End is the third book in the Cold Case Investigation series by Lissa Marie Redmond. It is a fast-paced book, filled with a variety of characters. The plot is well-written and the story has some twists. I think the best way to enjoy this series is to read the books in order. However, the author does a good job filling in the blanks, so this book could be read as a stand-alone. All in all, I recommend the series to anyone who enjoys a police procedural, good dialogue and characters, and an enjoyable plot.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing a copy of this book for review.

Lauren Riley and her partner Shane Reese have been through a lot in this series - but they remain committed to finding murderers as they work cold cases. Her life is sort of a mess; she has two grown daughters, an ex-husband who is an attorney she keeps running into, a side business as an investigator, she was (literally) stabbed in the back by a colleague, and most of all, she's been unable to prove David Spencer, a real creep is a murderer. Now though there might be a chance. The corpse of a young woman who went missing months before is found in the same spot as another victim - so is there a serial killer? Lauren is certain she'll finally be able to get Spencer but she runs into conflicts with the, you know, law. There's some twists, some drama, and a cliff hanger of an ending. I read the first book but not the middle one and I was fine with this because Redmond provides back story. These are great characters. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.

A story that starts very slow and because i haven't read the other two books in the series, i felt like missing something but so big. I was intrigued because i always look for different and unique mysteries to be solved and this story did hold my attention after the first quarter more because as i said, it starts slow but when it picks up, it's just don't stop!
Crime after crime, the guilty person is trying to cover his traces but the detective Lauren won't give up so easy in finding the culprit.
It's a mystery crime story, a Cold Case episode even (which i love) with so many turns and twists that will keep you wanting more and more.
The ending was brilliant but i still have questions that i feel like weren't answered but hopefully, there will be another book in the series.