Right Behind You

Quincy and Rainie are back!!


Of the 3 Gardner books missing from my bookshelf, I technically only don't own one. The other two exist somewhere in the house. There are few authors I want to own everything they write and Gardner is one of them.


Some of my favorites (OK they are all wonderful) featured Quincy and Rainie. So I can't even describe how I felt when I saw that Gardner was writing another book featuring former profiler Quincy and former cop Rainie. It has been many years since they graced the pages of her excellent work and I was extremely excited for what was to come.


One of last times this pairing featured as the main characters in a book (Gone), Rainie had been kidnapped. We also learned they had been hoping to adopt a child but that fell through due to Rainie’s past. They were in the following novel, Say Goodbye, but that work mainly focused on Quincy’s older daughter, Kimberly. Now here we are, years later, and thankfully things have changed. They have a teen girl living with them that they hope to adopt. Things are looking up for their family.


Or so they thought.


As has become usual with Gardner’s works, we “flash back” to a scene in the past, this time looking into the events that eventually lead to Rainie and Quincy landing their foster (future daughter) Sharlah in their care.


Sharlah is quiet, she is reserved, she doesn’t want to open up. And that is understandable. She watched her beloved older brother kill her father.


Now that same brother is being hunted as a suspect in the deaths of his foster parents as well as two people in a local convenience store.


If you are a first time reader of Gardner, you may assume that Telly is indeed all the trouble he is made out to be, that he is your killer but long time readers will have their doubts going in as Gardner has been known to surprise you in the end (read The Neighbor if you’re really curious).


And surprise you she did. Throughout the book I thought perhaps the biological son of Telly’s foster parents had done it then I changed my mind only to go down that path. This has happened before with Gardner’s work. She leaves you guessing until nearly the end. The ultimate villain only entered my mind as a suspect mere pages before he was revealed.


The ending may have been a bit rushed but as seems to be usual, there isn’t a complete happy ending. Maybe someone may think Quincy and Rainie adopt Telly as well as his sister or at least let him live with them until he turned 18. That doesn’t appear to be the case and that is realistic. While I’m sure Quincy and Rainie will encourage their daughter to see and know her brother, I did not see them allowing the boy that deep into their lives, at least not right now.


Reading this book has made me want to reread all of Gardner’s works. Again. She has crafted yet another excellent thriller and I’m already looking forward to her next work. I would love to see more Quincy and Rainie. Some more Kimberly and Mac. Maybe visit David Riggs once more. And of course D.D. Warren (please more Bobby Dodge than just a passing mention) and Tess Leoni.