Stranded

May 13, 2013
In bestseller Kava’s 11th hair-raising thriller featuring FBI agent Maggie O’Dell (after 2012’s Fireproof), Maggie and her partner, R.J. Tully, pursue a vicious serial killer who likes to torment his victims before doing them in. The killer appears to haunt interstate truck stops and rest stops, but aside from that meager clue, Maggie and Tully struggle to discern a pattern, even after discovering his barnyard dumping ground in rural Iowa. What’s worse, they don’t realize that the killer may already know all about Maggie. Their search takes them to a lucky but traumatized college student, who barely escaped from the killer with his life, while handsome Ryder Creed and Creed’s trained K-9 dogs also lend their assistance. Kava adds a human touch to the heart-thumping chase, and though sharp-eyed readers may foresee the predictable twists, this won’t take away from their enjoyment. 6-city author tour.

July 15, 2013
The FBI's Maggie O'Dell (Fireproof, 2012, etc.) battles a serial killer who ranges freely along the nation's superhighways. Whoever murdered Gloria Dobson and Zach Lester on their way to a sales meeting is one arrogant killer. Not only did he deliberately seek out two potential victims who were traveling together, but after mutilating their bodies, he arranged for Maggie to receive a bare-bones road map that sent her and her partner, R.J. Tully, scurrying from the nation's capital to the nation's heartland--Sioux City, Iowa--where he'd left another victim and teasing hints of still more. As the powers that be back in Washington convene a Highway Serial Killings Task Force, whose members include Maggie's friend Detective Julia Racine of the DC Metro Police and her even closer friend Dr. Gwen Patterson, the psychiatrist of choice to Beltway politicos, Maggie and Tully feel as if they're being fed clues in a scavenger hunt. Serial firebug Otis P. Dodd announces from his prison cell that he's met a guy named Jack who shared detailed information about his killings. College student Noah Waters emerges from the Kansas countryside, a potential victim who somehow managed to escape from Jack even though he's too traumatized to describe the man who killed his buddy Ethan Ames. Just when Maggie thinks she can put a proper name and a face to Jack, the rug is pulled out from under her in a way that's probably more surprising to her than to readers. In Kava's hands, the echoes of several familiar serial-killer yarns are just as breathless but a lot less original or compelling.

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Starred review from July 1, 2013
A serial killer who finds his victimspreferably two at a timeat interstate-highway rest stops takes a shine to FBI Special Agent Maggie O'Dell and starts leaving her clues. A map left in Maggie's burned-down house in the Washington, D.C., area sends her, with partner R. J. Tully, to a deserted farm in Sioux City, Iowa. Here, with the help of Ryder Creed's cadaver-hunting dog, they find one of the killer's prime dumping grounds, as the perpetrator himself watches. Then comes a clue from Manhattan, Kansas, where a college student who survived the killer is terrorized by his memory of his best friend being savagely murdered and threats of what could happen to him. In her eleventh Maggie O'Dell entry, Kava shows mastery in constructing a plot with nonstop action, covering a time span of just over a week, with suspense rising to a nearly unbearable level in a climax in the Florida backwaters. Maggie is indomitableslogging through mud or water in search of clues and perps, inured to the sight of decapitated or eviserated bodies, cool in facing a canny killerwith a loyal supporting cast and hints of a new romantic interest. Prime escapism for thriller fans with strong stomachs.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)

February 15, 2013

FBI special agent Maggie O'Dell is back, traveling those lonesome highways. The reason? There's a killer abroad, targeting the hungry and bone-weary who stop at rest areas along the blacktop. Maybe he'll come gunning for Maggie.

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