De glace et de ténèbres

Alvarez & Pescoli #3

by Lisa Jackson, Philippe Mortimer (Translator)

Selena Alvarez en est persuadée : l'affaire sur laquelle elle et sa coéquipière Regan Pescoli enquêtent est hors normes. D'abord parce que les victimes - toutes des femmes - se ressemblent étonnamment : ossature du visage, peau claire, cheveux auburn, yeux verts. Ensuite parce que le tueur, qui s'attaque méthodiquement et froidement à ses victimes, semble insaisissable et tout proche à la fois. Comme si, caché dans l'ombre, épiant ses victimes jusqu'à s'imprégner de leurs moindres habitudes, il attendait son heure pour frapper, de nouveau. En pleine période de Thanksgiving, dans ce Montana de ténèbres et de glace que les décorations de Noël peinent à réchauffer, Selena sait qu'elle va devoir faire preuve d'une ingéniosité et d'un courage sans égal pour arrêter ce tueur implacable.
Et pour révéler au grand jour le terrible secret qui le pousse à agir.

Genres: Mystery, Thriller, Fiction, Romantic Suspense, Suspense, Romance, Mystery Thriller

540 pages, Paperback

First published January 28, 2011

About the author

Lisa Jackson is the number-one New York Times bestselling author of over ninety-five novels, including the Rick Bentz and Reuben Montoya Series, the Pescoli and Alvarez Series, the Savannah series, and numerous stand alone novels. She also is the co-author of One Last Breath, Last Girl Standing, and the Colony Series, written with her sister and bestselling author Nancy Bush, as well as the collaborative novels Sinister and Ominous, written with Nancy Bush and Rosalind Noonan. There are over thirty million copies of her novels in print and her writing has been translated into twenty languages.

Before she became a nationally bestselling author, she was a mother struggling to keep food on the table by writing novels, hoping against hope that someone would pay her for them. Today, neck deep in murder, her books appear on The New York Times, USA Today, and Publishers Weekly national bestseller lists.

With dozens of bestsellers to her name, Lisa Jackson is a master of taking readers to the edge of sanity—and back—in novels that buzz with dangerous secrets and deadly passions. She continues to be fascinated by the minds and motives of both her killers and their pursuers—the personal, the professional, and the downright twisted. As she builds the puzzle of relationships, actions, clues, lies, and personal histories that haunt her protagonists, she must also confront the fear and terror faced by her victims and the harsh and enduring truth that, in the real world, terror and madness touch far too many lives and families.

Visit http://www.LisaJackson.com where you can find a Media Kit with photos and more information.

Reviews

[Vivisection]

I really don't understand how I have made it to 43 and NOT been murdered by a serial killer. I'm perpetually single. I live alone. I run at night. I have TWO cats. Sometimes I do the on-line dating. What? Now even deranged murdering men don't want me?

It's hard being a spinster.

[Wendy Soliman]

A promising start but I soon got bogged down in stuff that didn't drive the story forward. I was confused. Was the doctor the main character, or was it the female detectives? It made sense to have backstory for the doctor, it was necessary to the plot, but I'm at a loss to understand why we needed to know so much about one of the detective's difficult teenage children - they had nothing to do with anything - or the other detective's obsession with her boss.

I wanted to enjoy this book, and in part I did, but there was too much repeat information. For example, at one stage we were told a child was taken to hospital dressed in whatever. Then when he gets there, the doctor tells us what the child was dressed in. Memo - we already knew and didn't need to be told again. It might seem petty, but there was a lot of repetition like that.

I really had issues with the killers reasons for ... well, killing the woman. Also, must we have the climax set against a storm where the electricity goes out and the batteries in torches are on the blink. It's been done so many times. There must have been another way.

The author is very popular, but obviously left me disappointed.

[Mallory]

This is book 3 in the Alvarez & Pescoli series and maybe not having read the previous two is why I thought this book was hard to get into (but I don’t really think so). The book alternates perspectives which I do typically enjoy a lot, but there were so many characters telling the story and each of them had a huge cast of people and it felt overwhelming and not all of them felt important. I will say as the story got going more and more it got more interesting and easier to follow (even if there were still weird bits like the detectives stubborn and acting out teenage kids for no reason for the plot). I did like the mystery in this one and thought it was a very interesting twist and especially liked the epilogue. I would read more in this series.

[Mandy]

This book started out good, it roped me in. All these women are dying in mysterious ways that look like accidents but both detectives on the Grizzly Falls police force seem to think different. It seems that all these women dying have a common factor... they all look alike. So much alike that they could pass as relatives.

Acacia Lambert, a doctor in town starts to put two and two together and together with Trace O' Halloran decides to look into this crazy murder mystery and discovers much more than she ever imagined.

Really good book, was a bit long in my opinion and could have been cut short by 150 pages but still good! Highly recommend. You won't want to put it down.

[Sheila]

I did not care for this book. Way to many characters and their point of views.

[Terri Lynn]

I really enjoyed this book though the whole premise is extremely improbable. This is third in a series about 2 female police detectives in the little hick town of Grizzly Falls, Montana- Selena Alvarez and Regan Pescoli.

Dr. Kacey Lambert discovers that a Hollywood actress who was originally from the area apparently died of an overdose in California. The actress looks a lot like her. Bells sound off in her head when other women in this rural area who also look like her begin having accidents and dying. When the husband of one says he was on the phone with his wife when she was run off the road, it starts to look like none of the deaths are accidents. To add to the mystery, local rancher Trace O'Halleran's young son Eli becomes her patient after an accident at school and developing pneumonia and she becomes interested in him-- only to learn that his ex-wife Leanna disappeared after divorcing him and giving up her rights to Eli and Leanna is also a lookalike and also that he was the last known person to have dated another lookalike who got pushed off a cliff.

I loved reading this and will now seek out the other books in the series. However, I did have a few problems with believability and other issues. Here they are:

(1) What is the likelihood that one rich doctor would father 7 kids with his wife, 2 kids with lovers (including Kacey's mom), and donate sperm as a med student thus fathering maybe 100 kids and then have one nutty kid decide to murder all of the females his dad fathered including the sperm donations? How could he make so many deaths seem accidental? How could he even find and access these women? How could he get in their homes to poison their coffee and set up tiny microphones?

(2) What is the likelihood that the school teacher pushed off the cliff would go off jogging in the ice and snow during a blizzard with near-pneumonia and without taking her cell phone and of course, run in an isolated cliff area despite having seen a truck following her?

(3) What is the likelihood that Kacey would move back to this tiny town in Montana and wind up dating the man who was married to one of the other lookalikes and dated another then have another as a patient who had just moved to town with her lawyer husband who was transferred here? Why would a big law firm in another state send someone to open a law office in a hick town in Montana?

(4) Regan is a police detective yet cannot control her 15 year old daughter or shake off her grown unemployed son who wants to lounge around all day playing video games so she thinks she might ought to move in with her lover Santana so he can control them. Excuse me. Is this not a grown woman, a police detective trusted with a gun when she cannot get a 15 year old girl in line and send the grown boy packing? Is she so weak she needs a man to handle it for her? Insulting to women!

(5) Trace had been stunned when his exwife Leanna left him in the night and sent divorce papers and papers giving up her parental rights to little Eli. Suddenly 7 years later, she comes back one night during a storm just knowing Eli is in danger, gets in the house where Kacey is searching for him in the dark while being pursued by the killer, takes him to the neighbors, steals their landline, cells, and computer so they can't call for help (I myself would WANT help fighting a killer!!) then stops to sign the child's cast before taking the killer on in the barn. What the hell is that about? Of course, Leanna also has to be one of the sperm donor kids.

(6) The sheriff of any town would not allow that nutty office worker to spend over a month setting up Secret Santa programs, playing endless Christmas music and decorating herself and the precinct in wall to wall Christmas decor. Government offices are not constitutionally allowed to do that and it has everyone bugged. The woman needed to see some psychiatrist. They have pills for overwrought crazies like her.

I love the book but honestly, it was over the top in areas.

[M.J. Rodriguez]

What a mystery novel was meant to be!

In this book, Pescoli and Alvarez learn of several women who had tragic deaths, such as a drug overdose, a rear-end collision, a skiing accident, etc. What’s more, two teenaged girls died in mysterious accidents before news of them reached Pescoli and Alvarez. The crime-fighting duo work very hard to find the real killer of these women. This novel was satisfactory in my mind.

[Meigan]

Better than the last one in the Pescoli/Alvarez series. This one had alot of things going on, which doesn't bother me because it makes for a more in - depth read. I like the setting of Grizzly Falls and Montana, I like the cast of recurring characters, although I would like to actually see some of the more interesting folks play bigger roles, like the town weirdos Grace Perchant and Ivor Hicks. They are quirky and add some interest when things get monotonous. I would also like to finally hear Alvarez's story!

Things I didn't like - the constant use of the word damned. It's seriously on every page. Vocab needs expanded! There were also quite a few grammatical errors and a whole slew of run on sentences, which can get "damned" confusing. Not to mention, the killer definitely has something wrong "down there". Every time the book switches to his narrative, his c_ck is " twitching ". He should probably get that looked at.

Hopefully the next book in this series will expand more on Alvarez. There have been a few hints about her backstory and it just leaves me wanting to know more.

[Rebecca]

This is the prequel to Afraid To Die, but I read it after. I have rated it one more star than Afraid To Die, but that is because I liked the idea behind the plot. However, as stated in my review for Afraid To Die, it is ridiculously repetitive, with murderers only striking around Christmas in the town - which means in every book we are also subjected to the same descriptions of Joelle decorating the police station, Pescoli having problems with her children, and Alvarez having no one to share the holidays with. Bore bore bore. It was vaguely intriguing in the 1st book but having no resolution across the stories doesn't make me eager to find out, it makes me resolve to read no more of this series.

This book in particular - I liked the driving force behind the plot with Kacey and thought it was interesting, but I didn't like the forced relationship with Trace (moved too fast and she looked identical to/was related to every other woman he'd recently been with - that's healthy.) and I didn't like the tacked on ending with the other sibling being behind it all. I think it was meant to be a twist but actually it just didn't make sense.

[Carol Jones-Campbell]

This is my first Lisa Jackson book, and it gets an average rating from me. It is quite long, and though the two main detectives are repetitive characters, side characters mostly badies and some goodies run most of the story. The story basics are a man who donates his sperm to a bank, then many many years later goes back and kills the people he spawned. Strange preface for a story. Not my favorite.

[Amanda]

Maybe my 1 star rating is harsh, because I like this author and series, but I didn't like this one. I only became interested with 100 pages left and that was 273 pages in. The previous two installments were fast paced and half made me afraid to look out a dark window. This had way too much back story going on. It seemed just to be a setup for future books and Regan's kids are getting annoying.

[Randy Tramp]

Setting: Grizzly Falls, Montana

Detectives Selena Alvarez and Regan Pescoli confront one of the most bizarre cases of their careers. Girls that look alike are dying mysteriously.

Kacey looks like the girls having deadly accidents. She wonders if she's next.

What a ride. Mystery and suspense fill the pages of "Born to Die." I found my pulse beating fast as my eyes traveled faster over the words. Heart-pounding good.

This story focused more on Kacey and her friend, Trace O'Halleran. Two great characters.

Toward the end, the pace moved at lightning speed. I sat on the edge of my chair, glued to the pages as they sailed by. And, the ending. All I can say is, "Wow."

[Tabi34]

Scary, creepy and wow...close to the truth. What you think when you look at a "perfect" family isn't always what you get.

This book is #3 in the Montana series, but it begins in LA with the death of an actress, who looks a lot like a doctor in Grizzly Falls, Montana where bodies of women who look eerily similar start to pile up.

The characters of Grizzly Falls are all there - Selena who works too much; Reagan with her two problem kids and a hunk of a boyfriend who wants to be more; Sheriff Dan Grayson - watch for something brewing with him. Undersheriff Cort Brewster whose hot 15-year-old daughter is sexting with Reagan's son. Joelle is full of Christmas cheer.

Jackson set this book during the holiday season again - probably to add a little hope, comic relief or cheeriness to an otherwise terrifying story. I felt a little smarter reading this book, I figured out the connection between the victims just before the detectives did.

This one had enough elements of realism that when I went for my morning walk, I kept a close look over my shoulder. I could see these traits manifesting themselves in families I know although I don't think they'd murder anyone, but still - family secrets don't go away, they leak out in the tiny cracks caused by holding them in so tightly.

A killer of a good read.

[Diane]

Enjoyed this book, it doesn't just deal with Alvarez and Pescoli, it involves the victims instead. The Alvarez and Pescoli story is a side step, but joins up with the main theme much further into the book.

The basic story here is all these look-alikes with roots in the state of Montana are being killed off by "accident" and the big question is why and by who. I can't give out any more details than that - it would ruin the suspense :)

2 thumbs up and 4 stars - could have been 5 stars if the story had been chopped back a bit, but still a good read and a good suspense.

[CD {Boulder Blvd}]

2.5 stars rounded up...

I got tired of the repetitive nature of Pescoli's character. Her family and lover issues keep getting revisited but never progress. It's a treadmill of the same stuff over and over. We get way too much Pescoli and not enough Alvarez.

The plot itself was good and I liked Kacey and Trace. There was a point where Kacey did a TSTL move.

The ending had some open items on the case that would have been nice to totally wrap up with consequences but at least you know where it was heading.

[Sandi]

I have always enjoyed the writings from this author. Born to Die was typical of this author. Her thrillers keep you on the edge of your seat. They are fast moving, and I love the two female detectives, Alvarez & Pescoli, that has carried this series to eight books to date. Hope Ms Jackson continues this series. I will slowly but surely continuing reading them. She has written so many books that I may have to turn to others she has written.

Thank you, Ms Jackson for the hours of entertainment.

[Kay]

I enjoyed this book very much with a good mystery, a serial killer, and great characters. It was a welcome relief from most of the crap I've had the bad luck to read lately [including another Jackson book]. Now I'm left without a library book so I guess it's time to grab one of the books in my closet! Who knows what I'll get when I do!

[Elif]

Ayy kitabı bitirmek ne kadar uzun sürdü. Baygınlık geldi. Hiç okumaya vaktim olmadı. Yoksa kitabı beğendim ben. Pescoli Ve Alvarez ikilisini seviyorum. Çevirisi geldikçe okumaya devam edeceğim. Tavsiyemdir 👍🏻

[Petra]

Lots of repetition, this could have done with some editing and been shortened several hours. The same themes from the previous two books are being regurgitated over and over (holiday season, weather, Pescoli's annoying teenagers etc). Narration is still terrible.

[Meghan]

What is family?

Trace and Kacey. When your face is not unique, but in fact common in your home town, and these people start dying, questions are sure to follow. This story was unique and disturbing in its path of showing us the Unknowing’s and who the guilty party was. I was not expecting the full depth of the evil, and I enjoyed its intricate and colorful nature. Trace and Kacey do have a romance, but it is a small side piece of the story and mainly due to his previous relationships. Alvarez was working the case and staying strict/held back, but she did attempt to socialize and it had some awkward results! Pescoli is back at work and facing some relationship and family growing pains which had a funny and tense aside to the story!

[Kristīne Līcis]

The premise is outlandish, but there is something appealing in its craziness and in the ridiculous reliability of serial killers showing up in Montana's Grizzly Falls just around Christmas, provided there is sufficiently nasty snow storm. Less action, more backstory than in the first two instalments in the series, but same generous serving of rugged cowboys falling for smart and independent women. Having a kid as one of the main characters definitely evokes empathic response, but for the life of me I don't get why Pescoli's teenage children must be such monsters.

“Could be that we’re on the lookout for a dark pickup.” Pescoli sent her a glance. “When aren’t we on the lookout for one?”

[Mercy Sakes]

Alvarez and Piscoli are contacted due to a suspicious murder or suicide of an actress in Hollywood. There are more women in the Montana area and bordering states who have been killed. The commonality between the murder is their resemblance to each other. Acacia (Casey) is the doctor who first noticed the resemblance between herself and the victims. I figured it out about a quarter of the way in, but the whodunnit took until about 75% through.

[Emily]

A book to help get me out of my slump. Neat premise and some good old fashioned twists, but the ending was underwhelming. Imagine all of the signs pointing to one character, so you know the twist is going to be it's someone else. Well the twist in this case is just that it's his brother who is basically the same person but had zero time in the lime light of this book. Try again, girl. 3.6

[Patricia]

Storyline was good, but there were to many characters to where if got to confusing...
Still a Good Read, just not a five for me!!!

[Knutschi]

Mein Fall war es leider nicht 🤷🏼‍♀️

[Meaghan]

Alvarez and Pescoli are not very involved in this one until the last third of the book. My least favorite of the series so far, but it was still a good read!

[Sara Lazarek]

Did not love the writing style of this author. The storyline was drawn out for 400 pages and then quickly wrapped up at the end.

[Judy Churchill]

These stories seriously rope me in. There is no way to stop so I keep reading much longer than I should. This isn’t my favorite of Jackson’s books although it’s good. How do these writers think up these plots?

[Twobchelm]

The serial killer continues to evade the law... these stories are full of action and suspense .

[Julie theriault]

not very good too many characters very confusing