Book Review: Last Breath (DCI Erika Foster #4) by Robert Bryndza

Book: Last Breath #4

Series: Detective Erika Foster

Publication: April 12th, 2017.

Publisher: Bookouture

Blurb: He’s your perfect date. You’re his next victim.

When the tortured body of a young woman is found in a dumpster, her eyes swollen shut and her clothes soaked with blood, Detective Erika Foster is one of the first at the crime scene. The trouble is, this time, it’s not her case.

While she fights to secure her place on the investigation team, Erika can’t help but get involved and quickly finds a link to the unsolved murder of a woman four months earlier. Dumped in a similar location, both women have identical wounds – a fatal incision to their femoral artery.

Stalking his victims online, the killer is preying on young pretty women using a fake identity. How will Erika catch a murderer who doesn’t seem to exist?

Then another girl is abducted while waiting for a date. Erika and her team must get to her before she becomes another dead victim, and, come face to face with a terrifyingly sadistic individual.

Gripping, tense and impossible to put down, Last Breath will have you on the edge of your seat, racing to the final dramatic page.

My Review

Started On – March 14th, 2017.

Finished On – March 14th, 2017.

I will always applaud for more Erika Foster #QueenDetective. I love her so much, she is one of my best fictional characters. And in this book Last Breath, I even enjoyed reading about her more than ever. I love how we got to see more into the person that she is and experience a lot more of her soft side and I think it’s safe to say she’s finally beginning to live her life again.

I love crime solving books because it is tasking and such a complex and beautiful thing to create. I despise our killer, a very sad excuse for a man, who is lazy and decides women have to suffer for his lack of self-confidence. In total honesty, I feel like, if he had actually tried to keep fit and instead of moping and whining about his outer appearance, put in an effort to look good, he would have hated himself less and may have gotten second glances from women, but he behaved flat-out creepy, and was obsessed with young women of a certain age, who I think he felt should be attracted to the him, he truly wanted to be, but couldn’t find the courage to be. I never once felt bad for him, but his parents who should have taken him to see a therapist because of the trauma he suffered in his childhood.

I hate when I read about how social media can actually lead to harming you, especially when you share too much and this book really had me thinking about my online presence, my trail, I bet I have a bazillion of accounts that I have opened and can’t even remember. Anyone can get catfished. And it really brings home the fear of the dangerous people using the internet to their advantage and how it could be anyone, someone you wouldn’t pay any mind to. This book also reminds me to be nice to strangers I meet and honestly, it’s always at the back of my mind, I don’t know who is a psychopath and who could hurt me, so I’m always nice and cautious, not giving away any look that can be read as offensive only when extremely warranted.

Back to Erika Foster, so her and James Peterson, can I get a hallelujah! I’m so glad to see their relationship develop into something with more meaning and I can only hope for good things for them in the future, Erika really needs it, super badly and this book made me realise that. She’s a strong independent and very successful woman—being a woman, one of the best detectives in the police force, it’s quite tough for her and she has a lot of stones, rocks, hurdles and trouble she faces that if her sex was opposite she wouldn’t have faced. So this book sends a clear message to the readers about the author’s opinion of women, which is great, I love seeing and reading about women empowerment. We aren’t fragile meek creatures.

Finally, after working teeth and bone, the book ends on quite the happy note, I mean I knew human who would not be named one would die and also human who would not be named two would be shot—I’m a very good book detective myself. The book was very good, I loved the chase, I couldn’t wait for them to discover clues, for our predator to slip up (they always get overconfident after a while of getting away with their death invoking shenanigans) and get sloppy. But always Erika swoops in a saves the day, I was so happy when they finally caught him, I wish I could know his psych evaluation because something is clearly more than wrong with him.

I love Moss, bless her soul, she had me in stitches in this book and I love the relationship that Erika, Moss and Peterson share, it’s a wonderful thing. I’m glad we saw more of Dr Isaac and that heavenly advice he gave Erika, she really needed to hear it and I hope to read more about John and what’s going on with Commander Marsh. It’s especially fun, reading about places I’ve been to and lived at even, so I love this book.

I couldn’t put down this book at all, right from the moment I got it (maybe because it’s one of my most anticipated books of the year, I need more by the way—how many times I’ve said that?) Shoutout to Bookouture and Robert Bryndza for this wonderful opportunity and immediately approving my request via NetGalley earlier (it’s like past 12 a.m. as I’m writing this so it’s a new day) it didn’t even take up to five minutes to get the ARC. Thank you for the follow backs on twitter, it really made my day and getting the book of course! Bookouture’s authors are wonderful, especially in the Mystery/Thriller/Crime Solving genre.