2007: #82 – Split Second (Alex Kava)

Book #82 was Split Second, the second book in Alex Kava’s Maggie O’Dell series. The back of the book reads:

Some say Maggie O’Dell has lost it — lost the professional edge that makes her one of the best criminal profilers, and lost her ability to think clearly. Since capturing Stucky she’s been walking a tightwire, battling nightmares and the guilt over the victims she couldn’t save. Now with news of his escape, she’s been taken out of the field until he’s caught again. But Magge knows the truth: only she can see into the twisted mind of this madman. Only she can catch him. Albert Stucky wouldn’t have it any other way.

When it becomes undeniable that Stucky’s trail of victims is leading closer and closer to Maggie, the Bureau puts her back on the case. Under the supervision of Special Agent R.J. Tully, Maggie joins the hunt for a pyschopath who continues to stay one bloody step ahead of them. And, once again under the control of a cunning killer, Maggie finds herself pushed to the very edge.

What ultimately, is Maggie O’Dell capable of? Has her desire to stop Albert Stucky — to make him look into her eyes before she ends the game once and for all — become a matter of personal vengeance? Has she crossed that line in her need to make him suffer as he’s made others suffer? And is this Stucky’s game — to turn Special Agent O’Dell into a monster?

As Split Second races toward its inevitable climax, Alex Kava paints a chilling, unflinching portrait of the human psyche pushed past its limits. A runaway train of riveting suspense and heart-pounding drama, Split Second is a provocative, bold look at the nature of good and evil in all of us.

This is the first Alex Kava book I’ve read (in fact, until I got to the picture at the end of this, I thought she was a he), and now I’m going to have to get the rest of this series! I really enjoyed this, and look forward to reading about the first hunt for Stucky in the previous book. I only hope that this book marks the low point in O’Dell’s psychological struggle. She struggles a lot with herself in this book, and I can’t see that as something that can realistically continue.

Page count: 408 | Approximate word count: 92,558

2006 – Ruby (V.C. Andrews)