Grave Pursuit

This 12th in the “Rachel Ryder” series has shades of Silence of the Lambs to it, in that a serial killer becomes obsessed with an investigator and involves her in a macabre game. Rachel Ryder has left her Chicago police career and is now a detective in Hamby, Georgia, PD, honoring a promise she made to her murdered husband. Hanging out at a barbecue with colleagues, she’s summoned to work to find that it’s because of a frightening gift: someone has couriered a photo to her at work, one showing a woman lying on a hotel bed with her throat slashed. All Rachel has are questions. Is this just AI? Or could someone she previously arrested be after her? Is it something to do with her husband’s death? Adding to the puzzle is that the mysterious sender is making allusions to a chess game, with Rachel one of the pieces. The tension ramps up till the last pages—especially during a mass-casualty event that’s described in terrifying detail—until a twist delivers the shocking conclusion. There’s no need to read the previous books in the series to enjoy this one, but you’ll want to go back and binge-read them anyway.