Never Tell by Lisa Gardner (thoughts)

Summary from Goodreads:

"A man is dead, shot three times in his home office. But his computer has been shot twelve times, and when the cops arrive, his pregnant wife is holding the gun.

D. D. Warren arrives on the scene and recognizes the woman—Evie Carter—from a case many years back. Evie's father was killed in a shooting that was ruled an accident. But for D.D., two coincidental murders is too many.

Flora Dane sees the murder of Conrad Carter on the TV news and immediately knows his face. She remembers a night when she was still a victim—a hostage—and her captor knew this man. Overcome with guilt that she never tracked him down, Flora is now determined to learn the truth of Conrad's murder.

But D.D. and Flora are about to discover that in this case the truth is a devilishly elusive thing. As layer by layer they peel away the half-truths and outright lies, they wonder: How many secrets can one family have?"

My Thoughts:

This is my first five star read of 2019!!!  I am so completely hooked on this series at this point and I'm only three books in.  It's funny because I'm totally not reading them in order - and I've started compulsively buying them whenever I find copies of the earlier books because I definitely want to read the entire series at this point.  But back to this book which again features Flora Dane whom I have just grown to love.  In Never Tell, the book is told from three different viewpoints all focusing on the recent shooting and murder of Evie Carter's husband.  One viewpoint is D.D.'s as she is investigating this murder, one from Evie's viewpoint as she deals with the aftermath of her husband's death, and finally from Flora's point of view as she recognized Evie's husband as being an acquaintance of her former captor Jacob Ness.  All of these three storylines are so compelling and made this book one that I couldn't set down.  Gardner does such a beautiful job of creating tense and suspenseful atmospheres in each of her books.  This book kept me guessing and turning the pages the entire time!  There is so much going on that you would think that it is almost too much - I didn't even mention yet that Evie "accidentally" killed her father when she was younger.  Instead all of these different things just tie together beautifully to ratchet up the suspense even more!  I feel like I'm just rambling here at this point so here is what you need to know: this book is JUST as amazing as every book that I've read in this series so far.  If you haven't read this series yet, you can certainly start here or you could do like I did and begin with Find Her (or maybe start at the very beginning of the series like most people do).  I loved this book so much and one of the reasons is because of Flora's character.  I'm loving the chance to see her continue to work on living her life after everything that she has been through.  There is just so much going on in this book that I absolutely loved.  I loved that I was kept guessing the entire time on what actually happened.  I won't say more than that but I just cannot recommend this series enough at this point!!

Overall this was easily a five star read for me and my first one of the new year!  I feel like all I'm doing is gushing at this point but really it was that good!  This book was just as compelling and thrilling as the other two books that I've read in this series.  The mysteries are always suspenseful but it is the characters that keep me coming back for more.  I really am looking forward to finally starting back with the first book in this series sometime in the near future!  If you enjoy tense, edge of your seat - will not - cannot - stop reading books then this series is for you!  I can highly recommend this one to thriller and mystery lovers alike!  Lisa Gardner has sky rocketed on to my favorite authors list!  I will eagerly be anticipating the next book in this series and reading everything that she writes!  Highly recommended!

Bottom Line:  As tense and thrilling as I had hoped it would be - an easy five star read!

Disclosure:  I received a review copy of this book thanks to the publisher - thoughts on this book and series are my own!