The Body Reader
Ratings9
Average rating3.8
15
Ratings9
Average rating3.8
For three years, Detective Jude Fontaine was kept from the outside world. Held in an underground cell, her only contact was with her sadistic captor, and reading his face was her entire existence. Learning his every line, every movement, and every flicker of thought is what kept her alive. After her experience with isolation and torture, she is left with a fierce desire for justice--and a heightened ability to interpret the body language of both the living and the dead. Despite colleagues' doubts about her mental state, she resumes her role at Homicide. Her new partner, Detective Uriah Ashby, doesn't trust her sanity, and he has a story of his own he'd rather keep hidden. But a killer is on the loose, murdering young women, so the detectives have no choice: they must work together to catch the madman before he strikes again. And no one knows madmen like Jude Fontaine.
Series
2 primary booksDetective Jude Fontaine Mysteries is a 2-book series with 2 primary works first released in 2016 with contributions by Anne Frasier.
Reviews with the most likes.
This was pretty damn hard to put down.
Detective Jude Fontaine escaped a 3-year captivity after overpowering her captor and making a run for it. But she was not the same person anymore. Everything about her and her life before she was kidnapped has changed - she was replaced at work, her boyfriend was seeing another woman, she was a cold shell of the happy normal person she used to be. And she gained a new ability, a bit of a super-heightened sense in smell and the ability to read body language.
Despite being plucked out of a situation and dumped into another, Jude coped and bounced back. She returned to the force and was given a new partner Detective Uriah Ashby, who had reservations on whether or not she should return to work at all. They immediately get thrown into a new case, which of course has some kind of connection to both Jude's secret personal history and recent kidnapping. All this and how it eventually wrapped up is a little too convenient, but the writing is good and pulls you along to the next page. You really want to find out what happens to Jude and whether or not she is truly safe.
The great part about The Body Reader is that you have characters who have been through hell and are stronger for it, despite moments of human weakness. Both Jude and Uriah are compelling characters. Their partnership had a rocky start, but Uriah started to care and Jude started allowing someone to care. This didn't lead to any romance, thankfully, because that would have been way too cliche.
I'm interested in read more from this author if The Body Reader isn't just one sample of a formulaic plot.
I don't feel like this review did the book justice, but if you're a fan of thrillers, this is a pretty good bet.
This digital copy was courtesy of NetGalley.
If you're looking for an in depth character analysis of a person who's been through heavy trauma caused by captivity, captor bonding, Stockholm Syndrome and how that changes a person this is the book for you.
If you're looking for a good detective, investigation and procedural book this ain't it.
Through out the whole book I felt like the writer decided to focus on the main protagonist and forgot the rest. Jude has depth, but this story doesn't. Most of the plot doesn't make sense, the twists are way predictable and the big case they build throughout the book is just a reflex of Judy herself.
