The Survivors Club by Lisa Gardner
Thriller. Police procedural. Trigger warnings of active rape.
Three women form the Survivors Club as victims of the same man that has sexually assaulted them. Each is struggling to recover, or survive in different ways, collectively grateful he’s been caught.
Outside the courthouse, just moments before his trial, Eddie Como is gunned down. The Survivors Club are the prime suspects. Detective Sergeant Roan Griffin is assigned the case and must question the women. Jillian Hayes is beautiful, successful and cool as ice. Griffin can see the pain behind the ice because he hides his own. Then another victim is brutally attacked and evidence points to the dead man. Now the police and Griffin have to question every fact and assumption they’ve made. The city is in a panic. The women of the Survivors Club question their own memories and their supposed safety. Someone is out there.

Electrifying and twisted.
The attacks in the beginning are brutally hard to read. And that makes it all the more terrifying when they continue after the suspect is dead. The emotional recovery of each woman is totally understandable. The bad guy is clever and manipulative. He’s terrifying.
Originally released in 2002. Just as impactful more than twenty years later. ( )

This wasn't a bad read, but I wouldn't call it great either. I wasn't too keen on the subject matter, but I read on. The "twist" at the end was decent, but it just seemed to wrap up too nicely and too quickly to suit me. All in all, not a terrible book, but not a great one either. It kept me reading, so that says something. Best thing I can say about this book is this: it was good to pass the time, I guess, and it was a quick read. ( )

Probably be 4 star with a different narrator, Anna Fields didn't suit me. ( )

A rapist left an indelible mark on three women's lives. All three women hated him and wanted him dead. When he is murdered on his way to trial the police must figure out which of the three women murdered him.

This story had a complicated plot that was interesting and a bit of a stretch but entertaining anyway. There was a lot about the suffering of the women who were attacked by the rapist but it was mostly believable and drew me in. A number of surprising things happened which made the police urgently work to figure out what was going on. This was a good thriller with a lot of suspense. ( )

Jillian Hayes, Carol Rosen and Meg Pesaturo belong to "The Survivors Club," a group of three women living in Providence, Rhode Island, who meet regularly after having been victimized by the same rapist. Eddie Como, known as the College Hill Rapist, is about to face trial. He has claimed innocence from day one but nobody seems to be expecting anything other than a guilty verdict since his DNA was found at the scenes of the attacks. When Como is killed on his way to the courthouse by an unknown assassin, it's hard to see too many people being upset. When the assassin is killed minutes later it leaves two murders that need to be investigated.

The author introduces us to Detective Sergeant Roan Griffin, a state police officer back at work a year after dealing with the death of his wife and the loss of control at a crime scene. He doesn't know the three members of the Survivor's Club but considers them prime suspects in the murder of Eddie and the assassin.

Shortly after Eddie is killed, another rape occurs and the doctors recover Eddie's DNA from victim. Jillian teams up with Roan to investigate how this could happen. Eddie is dead so how can he have raped and killed another woman? How can a dead man, who had been assassinated earlier, leave DNA at a crime scene?

This is not a new Lisa Gardner book. Somehow I managed to miss this one a few years ago and am glad I was able to pick it up now. I thought it was a very suspenseful story and the plot races along incorporating many unexpected twists. It's an outstanding crime thriller and if you are a fan of Lisa Gardner you will really enjoy this one.

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