You Can Hide by Rebecca Zanetti

Hello everyone.  I hope you are having a great day.

I was recently listening to an interview given by a major thriller author.  He was talking about doing ample research. As he discussed having to pull strings to get access to a Secret Service agent, I had to smile.  Although I am the lowly, cookie baking, dog butt trimming, compulsive list making, recipe testing, popular fiction reading, unknown to everyone, housewife....I have had lunch with a Secret Service agent.  As I've explained in the past, this occurred while I was still working, prior to my glorious wifery ways.  I had a chuckle at the expense of this huge writing talent, constantly on the NY Times Bestseller list.  I, yes, me, know an FBI agent.  Gasp!  Did you gasp?  Come on, given my constant complaints on egg and butter prices, tales of dishwasher failures, or chicken baking, this is the good stuff.  I'll try again, I have had lunch with a Secret Service agent and know an FBI agent.  Now...all together...gasp!  How shocking.  How unusual.  How impressive.  Ah forget it, people today are so jaded and impressed by nothing but money.  

I recently read You Can Hide by Rebecca Zanetti.  This is part of a series, but I didn't know that, and it didn't matter.  This is the story of a FBI agent Laurel Snow, who works with Fish and Wildlife Captain Huck Rivers, as they try to catch a serial killer.  Someone is hunting accomplished women, bashing their brains in, cutting off their hands, and leaving them outside in the winter in northern Washington state.  All the women are surrounded by black dahlias, symbolizing betrayal.  As Laurel and Huck work together, the reader is presented with several viable candidates for killer.  The need for speed in solving this case is urgent to prevent another woman from meeting such a horrible fate.  The pace is magnified when Laurel's own sister finds her own front yard sprinkled with black dahlias.

This book was fun and interesting.  While more mystery than thriller for me, the construction of the story kept me guessing and interested.  Not overly wordy and maintaining pacing throughout, I enjoyed this one.  Not to mention, it surprised me, all the way to the last page.  Gotta love that.  

By the way, I didn't meet an FBI agent when I did hard time for letting chicken stock boil over on the stove.  He was our neighbor at our last house, making for an interesting neighborhood watch!