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As a teenager, Vickie Preston survived an attack by a serial killer. That was the first time she saw a ghost. Now the city of Boston is being terrorized - someone is kidnapping women and burying them alive, but cruelly leaving a glimmer of hope for the authorities by sending a clue about their location. Vickie is pulled into the investigation when her name is mentioned in one of the notes. And as a historian, she has the knowledge to help uncover the graves the killer known as the Undertaker is choosing. But she also has another, unique lead: the spirit of one of the victims is appearing to her in dreams. Special Agent Griffin Price is on the case for the Krewe of Hunters, the FBI's special unit for paranormal investigators. He feels particularly protective of Vickie, since their shared past is connected to the threat that currently surrounds them. With the killer accelerating his plans, time is running out for more victims hidden around the city. Vickie is becoming closer with Griffin, but she's getting too close to the danger, and every breath could be her last.… (más)
Dying Breath is the first of three Krewe of Hunters book to feature Vickie Preston and Griffin Pryce as the leads, and the twenty-first book in the series. Our city setting this time is Boston, Massachusetts.
The prologue has Vickie as a teen, babysitting for little Noah Ballantine, cherished infant son of George and Chrissy, whose beloved elder son, Dylan, was killed in an accident (drunk driver), when he was 17. Vickie knows her escaped homicidal maniac and babysitter stories, but she didn't expect to find herself in one. At first, the only thing odd is that baby Noah keeps looking and laughing at nothing. Good thing for Vickie that she eventually finds out the answer to the mystery, or she and Noah would have been the next victims of Bertram Aldridge, the Southside Slasher. Griffin Pryce is the young police office credited with their rescue, but he had help.
It's now nine years later. Vickie has grown up to be a historian and author. She also has a youth group of at-risk students. Aldridge was once in these teens' shoes. Perhaps they can be saved from his fate. Avoiding a lifetime in prison would be great -- so would the protection of potential victims.
Alas, there's a new serial killer in Boston, the Undertaker. Griffin Pryce, now a member of the F.B.I.'s Krewe of Hunters, is working with Krewe field director Jackson Crow on the case. We meet them looking for a new victim. The Undertaker doesn't kill his victims first: he buries or encloses them alive. He (or she) also likes to send clues. If the victims are found alive, that seems to be okay. Perhaps it's the drama that's sought.
Vickie is brought into the case because her name is on the clue for the latest victim: Crissy Ballantine. Has Bertram Aldridge escaped again? No. So what's going on? Vickie's parents, Lucy and Dr. Philip Preston are so worried that the Undertaker will go after Vickie that they insist she accompany them on their upcoming romantic trip to Italy. Vickie refuses.
All during the hunting and rescuing, Vickie and Griffin's attraction to each other is growing. After all, Vickie is no longer a teen under 18, and she had such a crush on the handsome cop who'd saved her.
There's sight seeing with Vickie's youth group and scenes with old friends woven through the mystery. There are also ghosts. I haven't read the book between Dying Breath and Wicked Deeds, Dark Rites, but I know that the two main ghosts in this one also appear in book three.
There's suspense, painless history lessons, and romance. Don't forget the red herrings!
CHAPTER NOTES (name dropping, in order of appearance, will be at the end of each chapter's notes, so check for your favorite authors, composers, songs, fictional characters, etc.):
Prologue:
a. Look hear for insulting meanings the Southside Slasher has given to 'FBI' and 'BPD'.
b Mentions: Old South Meeting House, 'Little Baby Bum' and 'Disney's Little Mermaid'.
Chapter 1:
a. Griffin grew up on Beacon Hill. Detective David Barnes has worked with the Boston Police Department for 15 years, but he worked in South Boston, so he and Griffin don't know each other.
b. Vickie reads aloud the epitaph on the tombstone of a woman falsely accused of, and hanged for, witchcraft. This gives her a chance to explain to her youth group that the witch hunting craze in Massachusetts wasn't just in Salem.
c. Vickie moved back to Boston from New York because her ex-boyfriend, Jared Norton, kept trying to get her to take him back. She works for Grown Ups, a private charity that tries to help at-risk teens. We get some background on one of them here.
d. We're told what oyer and terminer means.
e. Vickie has dual degrees in history and literature from NYU. Her first book was on the tombstones of New England, She's working on a book about the decline of Puritanism in New England. One maternal great-grandmother was from Ireland and one great-grandfather had been a Norwegian actor 'fresh off the boat'. Her father's family had arrived in Massachusetts a few decades after the Mayflower landed in 1620.
f. We meet and learn a little about Vickie's parents, who are still very much in love with each other.
g. Mentions: King's Chapel, King James II of England, Salem, Massachusetts Bay Colony, Puritans, Quakers, Anne Hibbons (hanged as a witch in 1656), King William and Queen Mary of England, the Glorious Revolution, Governor William Phips, William Stoughton, Paul Revere, John Hancock, Granary Burying Ground, Copp's Hill Burying Ground, the Freedom Trail, Harvard, College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia; St. John's College, Annapolis; Yale, Boston's Little Italy, New York University, the Mayflower, Granary Burying Ground, Italy, Rome, Florence, St. Mark's Square, Venice.
Chapter 3:
a. We learn why the ghost of Dylan prefers to travel by train.
b. Vickie's apartment in a brownstone building is described a bit . c. Mentions: Thor, Lego bricks, Harry Potter, and Rick Riordan.
Chapter 4:
a. Here we learn the name of the ghost that helped victim Angelina Gianni be found in time.
b. Vickie's current book is also about the Mather family.
c. We are introduced to Mario Caro and Pasta Fagioli, his family's restaurant.
d. Vickie's graduation present wasn't the usual kind.
e. Cotton Mather -- Saint or Ultimate Evil is the 18th century book Vickie is reading.
f. There's more information about Vickie's youth groups' background. (Cathy's story is the most harrowing.)
g. Mentions: Paul Revere, Increase Mather, Cotton Mather, George Burroughs, the Putnams, Robert Howard [merchant who first owned the Paul Revere house, not to be confused with Robert E. Howard, creator of Conan the Barbarian], John P. Reynolds, Jr. [founder of the Paul Revere Memorial Association], Daniel Defoe, and Robinson Crusoe.
Chapter 5:
a. We get some more Boston history as Vickie, Griffin, Jackson, and Detective Barnes hunt for a victim in the area Barnes used to patrol: the Boston Neck.
b. The Pine House in the Boston Neck is described. There's an interesting scene in it.
c. Vickie has a nightmare.
Mentions: Massachusetts Bay Colony, Puritans, Pilgrims, Quakers, the Boston Neck, the Common Grounds, Boston Commons, Gallows Hill, William Robinson, Marmaduke Stevenson, William Leddra, Mary Dyer, the Massachusetts charter, the Toleration Act of 1689,
Chapter 6:
a. Roxanne and Vickie talk about their high school boyfriends and how they're doing.
b. Mention: Sherlock Holmes.
Chapter 7:
a. There's more description of Vickie's apartment.
b. Griffin talks about where he grew up and when he first learned he could see ghosts (a paternal aunt, Matilda/Mattie, could, too). He also talks about Adam Harrison (who knew his aunt & his Uncle Henry), Adam's son, Josh, and how Griffin himself joined the Krewe.
b. There's a mini-history of the Boston Police Department, followed by the observations of a fictional Officer Joseph MacDonald who served from 1871-1901 in connection with a strange find in chapter five.
c. This is the first mention of Alex Maple, who will have a bigger role in the next book.
d. Mentions: , St. Paul's in New York, Trinity in New York, Wall Street, The Walking Dead' (TV show), . and the Battle of Bunker Hill (without Breed's Hill).
Chapter 8:
a. We learn a little about some Ballantine ancestors: George and Mary, Andrew, Mason, and the current George's father, also a George.
b. Vickie has another strange dream. (She sleeps in a 'Star Wars' T-shirt.)
c. Look here for the quotation about those who cannot remember the past.
Mentions: 'Star Wars,' Suzan [correct spelling] and James [a.k.a. Michael] Carson, President Jimmy Carter, Fred and Rosemary West of Britain, Karla and Paul Bernardo, spree killers [Charles] Starkweather and Caril [correct spelling] Ann Fugate, and George Santayana.
Chapter 9:
a. We learn more about Aldridge's family and of a neighborhood rumor when Detective Barnes was a kid.
b. Jackson Crow's wife, Angela Hain, is introduced to Vickie by phone.
Mentions: [Edgar Allan] Poe and Fairbanks House, Dedham, Massachusetts;
Chapter 10:
a. We learn the background of Darlene Dutton.
b. Vickie explains why she dumped Jared. We also get her opinion of Cotton Mather a couple of pages later.
c. Hank tells Vickie about his new girlfriend, June Jensen. (He's now an assistant manager for Great Organics food produce company.)
d. Sigh -- Vickie is still being on birth control, but that doesn't protect from sexual infections.
e. Mention: Big Brother [not the show]
Chapter 11:
a. Bertram Aldridge's great-grandfather, Jonah Aldridge, was suspected of doing away with a young prostitute.
b. There's more information about that find in chapter five.
c. Mentions: the Duck Tour and the Prudential Center,
Chapter 12:
a. The Boston Marathon Bombing was on April 15, 2013.
b. Apple pie wasn't invented in America. German['s] Chocolate Cake was, though.
c. Mentions: the Boston Strangler, Alfred Gaynor, Cradle of Liberty, Paul Revere House
Chapter 13 Mentions: Boston Common, Beacon Hill, and the Justice League
Chapter 14:
a. What Vickie is talking about with smallpox prevention before vaccination is called 'variolation'.
b. Roxanne's parlor is described.
c. Mentions: the 1721 smallpox epidemic in Boston, Benjamin Franklin, Cotton Mather's slave, Onesimus; William Douglas, Zabdiel Boylston, North Square/Clark's Square, the Pierce-Hichborn house, the Mariner's House, and Walnut Street Cemetery, Brookline.
Chapter 15:
a. Alex Maple wants to get in contact with Vickie. They meet later in the chapter.
b. Jackson calls Adam Harrison.
c. Aldridge talks about a story his great-grandma told him and why he murdered women with a knife.
d. Vickie's bodyguard cop for the day is Justin Hornsby.
e. Alex Maple had Vickie's dad for one of his teachers. He talks about a Hugh Belmont who wrote about his topic in 1939. The name of the doctor who went missing was Alain Marquette.
e. Sam Aldridge is said to have been suspected of the doctor's death, but a few pages ago it was Jonah Aldridge who was the suspect.
Mentions: Faneuil Hall, Peter Faneuil, the BTK killer, the Old State House, Court Street, Granary Burial Ground, Grand Central Station, Buick, Chrysler, Ford, and the Flash (superhero)
As usual, I enjoyed the history lessons. The romance was okay. Have to admit that I found the climax hard to swallow, but I've seen episode 112 of 'Mythbusters'. Then again, there is one detail and a lack of detail that keep me from declaring it impossible.
The epilogue provides some interesting background information on the Undertaker and the lead in to Dark Rites. ( )
As a teenager, Vickie Preston survived an attack by a serial killer. That was the first time she saw a ghost. Now the city of Boston is being terrorized - someone is kidnapping women and burying them alive, but cruelly leaving a glimmer of hope for the authorities by sending a clue about their location. Vickie is pulled into the investigation when her name is mentioned in one of the notes. And as a historian, she has the knowledge to help uncover the graves the killer known as the Undertaker is choosing. But she also has another, unique lead: the spirit of one of the victims is appearing to her in dreams. Special Agent Griffin Price is on the case for the Krewe of Hunters, the FBI's special unit for paranormal investigators. He feels particularly protective of Vickie, since their shared past is connected to the threat that currently surrounds them. With the killer accelerating his plans, time is running out for more victims hidden around the city. Vickie is becoming closer with Griffin, but she's getting too close to the danger, and every breath could be her last.
Google Books — Cargando...
(3.79)
1
The prologue has Vickie as a teen, babysitting for little Noah Ballantine, cherished infant son of George and Chrissy, whose beloved elder son, Dylan, was killed in an accident (drunk driver), when he was 17. Vickie knows her escaped homicidal maniac and babysitter stories, but she didn't expect to find herself in one. At first, the only thing odd is that baby Noah keeps looking and laughing at nothing. Good thing for Vickie that she eventually finds out the answer to the mystery, or she and Noah would have been the next victims of Bertram Aldridge, the Southside Slasher. Griffin Pryce is the young police office credited with their rescue, but he had help.
It's now nine years later. Vickie has grown up to be a historian and author. She also has a youth group of at-risk students. Aldridge was once in these teens' shoes. Perhaps they can be saved from his fate. Avoiding a lifetime in prison would be great -- so would the protection of potential victims.
Alas, there's a new serial killer in Boston, the Undertaker. Griffin Pryce, now a member of the F.B.I.'s Krewe of Hunters, is working with Krewe field director Jackson Crow on the case. We meet them looking for a new victim. The Undertaker doesn't kill his victims first: he buries or encloses them alive. He (or she) also likes to send clues. If the victims are found alive, that seems to be okay. Perhaps it's the drama that's sought.
Vickie is brought into the case because her name is on the clue for the latest victim: Crissy Ballantine. Has Bertram Aldridge escaped again? No. So what's going on? Vickie's parents, Lucy and Dr. Philip Preston are so worried that the Undertaker will go after Vickie that they insist she accompany them on their upcoming romantic trip to Italy. Vickie refuses.
All during the hunting and rescuing, Vickie and Griffin's attraction to each other is growing. After all, Vickie is no longer a teen under 18, and she had such a crush on the handsome cop who'd saved her.
There's sight seeing with Vickie's youth group and scenes with old friends woven through the mystery. There are also ghosts. I haven't read the book between Dying Breath and Wicked Deeds, Dark Rites, but I know that the two main ghosts in this one also appear in book three.
There's suspense, painless history lessons, and romance. Don't forget the red herrings!
CHAPTER NOTES (name dropping, in order of appearance, will be at the end of each chapter's notes, so check for your favorite authors, composers, songs, fictional characters, etc.):
Prologue:
a. Look hear for insulting meanings the Southside Slasher has given to 'FBI' and 'BPD'.
b Mentions: Old South Meeting House, 'Little Baby Bum' and 'Disney's Little Mermaid'.
Chapter 1:
a. Griffin grew up on Beacon Hill. Detective David Barnes has worked with the Boston Police Department for 15 years, but he worked in South Boston, so he and Griffin don't know each other.
b. Vickie reads aloud the epitaph on the tombstone of a woman falsely accused of, and hanged for, witchcraft. This gives her a chance to explain to her youth group that the witch hunting craze in Massachusetts wasn't just in Salem.
c. Vickie moved back to Boston from New York because her ex-boyfriend, Jared Norton, kept trying to get her to take him back. She works for Grown Ups, a private charity that tries to help at-risk teens. We get some background on one of them here.
d. We're told what oyer and terminer means.
e. Vickie has dual degrees in history and literature from NYU. Her first book was on the tombstones of New England, She's working on a book about the decline of Puritanism in New England. One maternal great-grandmother was from Ireland and one great-grandfather had been a Norwegian actor 'fresh off the boat'. Her father's family had arrived in Massachusetts a few decades after the Mayflower landed in 1620.
f. We meet and learn a little about Vickie's parents, who are still very much in love with each other.
g. Mentions: King's Chapel, King James II of England, Salem, Massachusetts Bay Colony, Puritans, Quakers, Anne Hibbons (hanged as a witch in 1656), King William and Queen Mary of England, the Glorious Revolution, Governor William Phips, William Stoughton, Paul Revere, John Hancock, Granary Burying Ground, Copp's Hill Burying Ground, the Freedom Trail, Harvard, College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia; St. John's College, Annapolis; Yale, Boston's Little Italy, New York University, the Mayflower, Granary Burying Ground, Italy, Rome, Florence, St. Mark's Square, Venice.
Chapter 3:
a. We learn why the ghost of Dylan prefers to travel by train.
b. Vickie's apartment in a brownstone building is described a bit
.
c. Mentions: Thor, Lego bricks, Harry Potter, and Rick Riordan.
Chapter 4:
a. Here we learn the name of the ghost that helped victim Angelina Gianni be found in time.
b. Vickie's current book is also about the Mather family.
c. We are introduced to Mario Caro and Pasta Fagioli, his family's restaurant.
d. Vickie's graduation present wasn't the usual kind.
e. Cotton Mather -- Saint or Ultimate Evil is the 18th century book Vickie is reading.
f. There's more information about Vickie's youth groups' background. (Cathy's story is the most harrowing.)
g. Mentions: Paul Revere, Increase Mather, Cotton Mather, George Burroughs, the Putnams, Robert Howard [merchant who first owned the Paul Revere house, not to be confused with Robert E. Howard, creator of Conan the Barbarian], John P. Reynolds, Jr. [founder of the Paul Revere Memorial Association], Daniel Defoe, and Robinson Crusoe.
Chapter 5:
a. We get some more Boston history as Vickie, Griffin, Jackson, and Detective Barnes hunt for a victim in the area Barnes used to patrol: the Boston Neck.
b. The Pine House in the Boston Neck is described. There's an interesting scene in it.
c. Vickie has a nightmare.
Mentions: Massachusetts Bay Colony, Puritans, Pilgrims, Quakers, the Boston Neck, the Common Grounds, Boston Commons, Gallows Hill, William Robinson, Marmaduke Stevenson, William Leddra, Mary Dyer, the Massachusetts charter, the Toleration Act of 1689,
Chapter 6:
a. Roxanne and Vickie talk about their high school boyfriends and how they're doing.
b. Mention: Sherlock Holmes.
Chapter 7:
a. There's more description of Vickie's apartment.
b. Griffin talks about where he grew up and when he first learned he could see ghosts (a paternal aunt, Matilda/Mattie, could, too). He also talks about Adam Harrison (who knew his aunt & his Uncle Henry), Adam's son, Josh, and how Griffin himself joined the Krewe.
b. There's a mini-history of the Boston Police Department, followed by the observations of a fictional Officer Joseph MacDonald who served from 1871-1901 in connection with a strange find in chapter five.
c. This is the first mention of Alex Maple, who will have a bigger role in the next book.
d. Mentions: , St. Paul's in New York, Trinity in New York, Wall Street, The Walking Dead' (TV show), . and the Battle of Bunker Hill (without Breed's Hill).
Chapter 8:
a. We learn a little about some Ballantine ancestors: George and Mary, Andrew, Mason, and the current George's father, also a George.
b. Vickie has another strange dream. (She sleeps in a 'Star Wars' T-shirt.)
c. Look here for the quotation about those who cannot remember the past.
Mentions: 'Star Wars,' Suzan [correct spelling] and James [a.k.a. Michael] Carson, President Jimmy Carter, Fred and Rosemary West of Britain, Karla and Paul Bernardo, spree killers [Charles] Starkweather and Caril [correct spelling] Ann Fugate, and George Santayana.
Chapter 9:
a. We learn more about Aldridge's family and of a neighborhood rumor when Detective Barnes was a kid.
b. Jackson Crow's wife, Angela Hain, is introduced to Vickie by phone.
Mentions: [Edgar Allan] Poe and Fairbanks House, Dedham, Massachusetts;
Chapter 10:
a. We learn the background of Darlene Dutton.
b. Vickie explains why she dumped Jared. We also get her opinion of Cotton Mather a couple of pages later.
c. Hank tells Vickie about his new girlfriend, June Jensen. (He's now an assistant manager for Great Organics food produce company.)
d. Sigh -- Vickie is still being on birth control, but that doesn't protect from sexual infections.
e. Mention: Big Brother [not the show]
Chapter 11:
a. Bertram Aldridge's great-grandfather, Jonah Aldridge, was suspected of doing away with a young prostitute.
b. There's more information about that find in chapter five.
c. Mentions: the Duck Tour and the Prudential Center,
Chapter 12:
a. The Boston Marathon Bombing was on April 15, 2013.
b. Apple pie wasn't invented in America. German['s] Chocolate Cake was, though.
c. Mentions: the Boston Strangler, Alfred Gaynor, Cradle of Liberty, Paul Revere House
Chapter 13 Mentions: Boston Common, Beacon Hill, and the Justice League
Chapter 14:
a. What Vickie is talking about with smallpox prevention before vaccination is called 'variolation'.
b. Roxanne's parlor is described.
c. Mentions: the 1721 smallpox epidemic in Boston, Benjamin Franklin, Cotton Mather's slave, Onesimus; William Douglas, Zabdiel Boylston, North Square/Clark's Square, the Pierce-Hichborn house, the Mariner's House, and Walnut Street Cemetery, Brookline.
Chapter 15:
a. Alex Maple wants to get in contact with Vickie. They meet later in the chapter.
b. Jackson calls Adam Harrison.
c. Aldridge talks about a story his great-grandma told him and why he murdered women with a knife.
d. Vickie's bodyguard cop for the day is Justin Hornsby.
e. Alex Maple had Vickie's dad for one of his teachers. He talks about a Hugh Belmont who wrote about his topic in 1939. The name of the doctor who went missing was Alain Marquette.
e. Sam Aldridge is said to have been suspected of the doctor's death, but a few pages ago it was Jonah Aldridge who was the suspect.
Mentions: Faneuil Hall, Peter Faneuil, the BTK killer, the Old State House, Court Street, Granary Burial Ground, Grand Central Station, Buick, Chrysler, Ford, and the Flash (superhero)
As usual, I enjoyed the history lessons. The romance was okay. Have to admit that I found the climax hard to swallow, but I've seen episode 112 of 'Mythbusters'. Then again, there is one detail and a lack of detail that keep me from declaring it impossible.
The epilogue provides some interesting background information on the Undertaker and the lead in to Dark Rites. (