book review: "The Forgotten Girls"...

... by someone I have never read or heard of, just randomly taken off the shelf of boxed Cds at the library, with the idea that it would be a good traveling companion when I am dashing to and fro. The author is Owen Laukkanen. It was so intense and stressful at times I had to turn it off, but would soon be back because I was so interested in the progression of the search for the 'cereal' killer.

It was well written, a fascinating story, told from several different viewpoints of various characters. The plot involves a number of young women, many who were what society might classify as trash, or throwaways, people very few would miss or search for if they never returned, disappearing into the underground. Most of the story takes place in the northwest, between Washington state and Montana, wrapping up across the border in Canada. A young woman's body is found, in the snow, with a wolf nearby,and a 'Jane Doe' death reported. Local law enforcement are stretched thin, have little time to investigate the demise of an anonymous female.

The FBI gets involved, with the pair of agents beginning to see a pattern of sorts, as they evaluate reports of unidentified victims across a wide swath of country, with the one apparent commonality being rail lines. Autopsy reports showed that most of the women were strangled as well as sexually assaulted. The agents gradually piece together the facts to be persuaded there is a serial killer out there, who has been at work for many years, with similar traits in his MO.

As the story progresses, there are many references to the awful weather that predominates in the Cascades and Rockies, at high altitudes over several months. Ice, snow, temperatures that make me shiver just to read about them, endless miles of empty country with only rail lines and trees in the white bleak landscape. And a man who hates females, preying on the women he encounters as they are hitching rides in empty boxcars traveling across the rails over mountains in the harsh winter chill.

He is ruthless, heartless, cruel, without mercy. Living a survivalist life, isolated up in the mountains, preying on people he could physically overpower and destroy. Just plain evil. But a character in a very well written story, that was a clearly described as any thing  you would see in film. Very realistic scenery and people,  making me desire to see this psychopath brought to justice