Catch Me

Boston detective D.D. Warren is not easily rattled, but a stranger waiting outside her latest crime scene manages it. Charlene Rosalind Carter Grant, known as Charlie, announces that she will be murdered in four days and asks that D.D. be the one to investigate her death. There will be no sign of forced entry and no struggle, she says. The killing is already planned. Charlie has reason to be certain. Every year on January 21st at 8:00 p.m., one woman has died. The victims were all childhood best friends from the same small town in New Hampshire, and no one has ever worked out why they were targeted. Charlie is the last of the group still alive, and she is counting down the hours. But Charlie is no passive victim. By her own account she can outshoot, outfight and outrun just about anyone in the city, and that raises an uncomfortable question for D.D. Is this woman the killer's final target, or is she the perfect suspect? While D.D. is also chasing a vigilante gunman who has been killing pedophiles around Boston, she digs into the deaths of Charlie's friends, knowing the next anniversary is almost here. The case turns on what Charlie is holding back. If she is truly in danger, D.D. has days to prevent a murder that has been carefully arranged. If she is not, the secret she keeps may be the most dangerous thing in the story. This is a book in Lisa Gardner's D.D. Warren series.