SAY GOODBYE by Lisa Gardner

Publisher: Bantam
Date published: July 2008
ISBN: 978-0-553-80433-1
Crime Thriller
Hardback
Reviewed by Gina


FBI Special Agent Kimberly Quincy is four months pregnant and just about ready to wind down taking an active, street, role in her investigations. Certain it is a girl, husband Mac is sure it’s a boy. Together though they plan for a stable life for their child. Then one night Kimberly receives a call that drastically alters the course of their life together.

Hooker Delilah Rose insists to Special Agent Sal Martignetti she is one of Kimberly’s informants. Kimberly has never heard of the young woman, never spoken to her and certainly has never received a bit of intel from her. What Delilah tells Kimberly draws her into a web that goes beyond the pale. A tale of young street walkers disappearing without a trace, a series of roommates and friends, including one named Ginny Jones who is particularly close to Delilah. Despite Mac’s insistence she let it go because of their child, Kimberly continues head long into her investigation. Before long she needs to make a choice—give up her job and move to Savannah with her husband or lose him. She tells herself just this one last investigation. Just this last one. What she uncovers though will haunt her the rest of her life.

This was the first of Lisa Gardner’s books I’ve read and I am not sure if I will read another. Not because of her writing, but because of the painfulness of the subject matter. SAY GOODBYE is a heart wrenching story. As the characters’ personal nightmares unfold on the pages you want to stop the tape in your head and rewind. In her very personal closing comments in the back of the book Ms. Gardner admits this is the grittiest book she has written yet. She tells a pair of stories, threaded into one, that needs to be told. Ms. Gardner tackles one of the darkest elements of our society and takes the reader into the world of the people who solve these kinds of crimes. Kudos to her for the amount of research and obvious painstaking care she put into each word.

I did have a bit of a time keeping the different suspects straight. A few times the time lines of when each appeared in the other’s life confused me and I had to flip back to see if there was one or two involved. I finally just went with the story. There is no humor to the story, but one character stands out for me, Rita, because she is the embodiment of the type of intelligence, perseverance and sense of right and wrong I hope to have in my 90’s.

Any number of times I wanted to put SAY GOODBYE down and walk away, to bury myself in a sweet romance or historical adventure but I couldn’t. I had to know how it ended. I’m glad I stuck with it.