Die With Me

A young girl has fallen from a church loft.  DI Mark Tartaglia has been assigned the task of this suspicious death.  The girl has traces of alcohol and GHB in her system.  Along with DS Sam Donovan he checks out the church.  Her death couldn't have been accidental.

Donovan picks up the girl's laptop from her stepfather and before long, another member of the team has found emails that point to her having been groomed by a paedophile.  Hours of work going through death records turn up two more similar deaths, both with suicide notes worded the same as the one Tartaglia's now has.

Due to a leak to the press, Tartaglia's superior decides that a more experienced DCI needs to be in charge of the investigation.  He turns it over to DCI Carolyn Steele.  She decides to call Dr. Patrick Kennedy, a profiler, in to help with the investigation.  This man had screwed up a previous case that he and Tartaglia had worked on together in the past.

The killer ups the ante when he emails DCI Steele.  She is upset by the email.  When the body of a young woman turns up and provides evidence similar to the previous killings, Tartaglia is confused because this young woman has been beaten and sexually assaulted.  This is not the pattern of the killer.  Has something changed?  It is a single word mentioned by one of his colleagues that helps put Tartaglia on the right track.

Author Elena Forbes has written an excellent thriller in Die With Me.  I was unable to put this book down, reading it in a day.  I am looking forward to reading the sequels.