Book Review: Cut to the Bone by Ellison Cooper

Book: 94/150

Rating: 4/5

Summary: After grieving the death of her fiancé and almost losing her job, Agent Sayer Altair is finally starting to rebuild her life. Her research into the minds of psychopaths is breaking new ground and her strange little family is thriving. But Sayer’s newfound happiness is threatened when she is called in to investigate a girl’s body left inside a circle of animal figurines below a cryptic message written in blood. When they discover that the dead girl is one of twenty-four missing high school students, Sayer quickly realizes that nothing in this case is what it seems. As the investigation draws her in to a tangled web of fake identities and false leads, the trail soon begins to point directly to her own life. Now, Sayer must confront her painful past to uncover her connection to the deranged killer if she hopes to save the missing teens and protect everything that she loves.

Thoughts: I absolutely love this series and Cut to the Bone is my favourite so far.

I have really been liking these thriller/mystery/suspense novels where it’s less focused on a whodunnit and more focused on the why and how these crimes are committed. For me, when the killer in a book is revealed, it can make or break a book. When books are less focused on keeping the reader guessing on who is responsible, and instead focuses on the protagonists and them trying to get into the mind of the suspect, it makes it a more enjoyable read for me.

Not only was this books mystery and crime really interesting to follow, it made some great advances on the previous book’s storyline. Sayer was conducting her own study looking at the brains of psychopaths, and subject 037 takes a keen interest in her and ‘checks in on her’ and follows her handling of this case. I love a series spanning story line, and this book ended with a jaw dropping cliffhanger! I usually don’t appreciate cliffhangers (I am impatient!), but this one was really well done and am so excited that it means there will be a next installment.

Thank you to NetGalley and Minotaur Books for an advanced e-reader’s copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. This ones comes out July 14, 2020.