The Eleventh Victim by Nancy Grace

From the Publisher

Hailey Dean is a young and tremendously successful criminal prosecutor in Georgia, equally proud of her career and her adoring fiance. But just a few weeks before the wedding, her fiance's murder and its aftermath send her into a tailspin. Grief-stricken and disillusioned with her profession, Hailey decides to leave Georgia for New York City; she hopes the change of pace and surroundings will help her heal. Transplanted to a lively, vibrant city where she has no ties and no painful reminders, Hailey embarks on a new career as a therapist. But just when she's beginning to feel settled in her new life, another tidal wave of turmoil engulfs her: Someone is murdering her patients, one by one. And the killer operates in the same way as the victims of the last case Hailey prosecuted. Clearly, Hailey hasn't left her past behind quite as well as she thought - and unless she returns to her true calling and solves the case, still more innocent people will die. Inspired by lawyer and television personality Nancy Grace's own beginnings as a prosecutor and the tragic death of her fiance, The Eleventh Victim is a compelling mystery full of intrigue that thrills from start to finish.

Publishers Weekly

TV personality and bestseller Grace (Objection! with Diane Clehane) makes her fiction debut with a less than compelling thriller starring a heroine much like herself, Hailey Dean, a highly successful Atlanta assistant DA who loses her fiancé to violence. After a final courtroom triumph, the conviction of chef Clint Burrell Cruise for the murder of 11 prostitutes, Dean resigns her prosecutor post and moves to Manhattan, where within two years she has a new career as a therapist. When someone starts to murder her patients with an m.o. similar to Cruise’s, Dean becomes a suspect. Rather implausibly, neither the NYPD nor Dean is aware that Cruise has been released from prison after the reversal of his conviction on appeal. Little inconsistencies, like calling Cruise “the most prolific serial killer ever to stalk the city of Atlanta,” even though many would award that dubious honor to real-life child-killer Wayne Williams (referred to in the text), don’t help. (Aug.)

Kirkus Reviews

A prosecutor's past comes back to haunt her with a new series of murders in this slick but superficial celebrity-penned thriller. Hailey Dean has tried her last case. Although she identifies strongly with the victims of the criminals she prosecutes, the work is too close to home. Dean has been a workaholic ever since her fiance was murdered, a tragedy that sent her to law school and the Atlanta DA's office, and she needs a break. So after putting away serial killer Clint Cruise, she picks up the life she should have had-working as a therapist in New York City. But just as she begins to reawaken to life, and the possibility of new romance, someone starts killing her clients. To make matters worse, a keepsake from her old life turns up at a crime scene, implicating Dean. Mining her own life, including the murder of her own fiance, Court TV celebrity Grace (Objection!, 2005) has created a fast-paced thriller. But despite the action-which switches from Dean's viewpoint to the killer's cool fury-this fiction debut feels too formulaic and simplistic. The characters lack depth, with many of the minor players, such as a buffoonish judge, played as caricatures. And while Grace may know the ins and outs of the legal system, too many events defy belief. While Grace's fame and the real-life tie-in will probably sell this book, its by-the-numbers plot and characters won't keep them reading.

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