The Sorority Murder by Allison Brennan

“The 10 Best New Mystery and Thriller Books of December are Giving Us Literal Chills”—E! Online “10 Books to Cozy Up With This December”—PopSugar A popular sorority girl. An unsolved murder. A campus podcast with chilling repercussions. Lucas Vega is obsessed with the death of Candace Swain, who left a sorority party one night and never came back. Her body was found after two weeks, but the case has grown cold. Three years later while interning at the medical examiner's, Lucas discovers new information, but the police are not interested. Lucas knows he has several credible pieces of the puzzle. He just isn't sure how they fit together. So he creates a podcast to revisit Candace's last hours. Then he encourages listeners to crowdsource what they remember and invites guest lecturer Regan Merritt, a former US marshal, to come on and share her expertise. New tips come in that convince Lucas and Regan they are onto something. Then shockingly one of the podcast callers turns up dead. Another hints at Candace's secret life, a much darker picture than Lucas imagined—and one that implicates other sorority sisters. Regan uses her own resources to bolster their theory and learns that Lucas is hiding his own secret. The pressure is on to solve the murder, but first Lucas must come clean about his real motives in pursuing this podcast—before the killer silences him forever. "Fans of Jeff Abbott and Karin Slaughter will find this crime novel hard to put down." —Publishers Weekly on The Third to Die "Downright spectacular… [A] riveting page turner as prescient as it is purposeful." —Providence Journal on Tell No Lies

I really enjoyed the podcast format and how it was handled. The way it made sure to mention respecting the families of the deceased was nice a touch. I also liked the multi-mystery. The one thing that probably kept it from 5 stars, was the ending not being as satisfying as I wanted. Bonus points for having a character named Rachel who doesn't need to be rescued.

Solid Mystery That Could Have Used Better Pacing. Reading through the other Goodreads reviews on this one, a common complaint is the pacing and bloat of this book - and I tend to agree, to a point. There was in fact a lot of going over the same facts of the case, and that probably added a solid 20 pages to the length of this book just in that fact alone. But it wasn't something that I particularly noticed while reading, and indeed while reading I thought this was a truly solid use of an emerging technique to solve cold cases. And while the body count may seem a bit high for a town with less than 80K (real-world) people, a quick Google shows that it actually isn't outside the realm of reality, even this Millenium (when until recently, violent crime was plummeting across the nation). It does in fact read a bit as a setup for a potential series with our former US Marshal investigator here, and it could actually be an interesting series if that is the case. Overall an interesting and compelling mystery that will keep you guessing until it wants to reveal it secrets - and then transitions into a bit more of an action/ suspense tale to finish up the case. Very much recommended.

Podcast Fun!

I am so proud of myself this year. I set a goal of one book and I am at such peace. I haven't picked up a book just for fun in many years. I usually pick a friend to pick the total number of books that they want to challenge me with. I haven't picked up an Allison Brennan novel since I read the Original Sin in High School and it was so nice to come back to this author and get lost in her story telling. This was such a departure from Original Sin and such a fun mystery. Firstly I will start by saying I love books that have a podcast. My favorite are true crime so this was perfect. This novel surrounds Lucas Vega who has created a podcast for his senior capstone project at Northern Arizona University. The podcast focuses on the mysterious disappearance and then death of NAU student and sorority sister Candace Swain.

The podcast is slowly gaining traction and gaining attention from everyone. The popularity starts to irritate Candace's sorority sisters. In hopes to try and solve this cold case the advisor who is helping Lucas brings Regan Merrit a former US marshal to help bring in clues. What adds more dynamics to this story is that Regan has problems of her own and this mystery is just the thing to keep her mind off her own issues. As the story continues Lucas and Regan start to get threats to end their search for answers.

I am glad that this is the book that I started my year off with. Sometimes reading a genre that you love sets your mood for a great year. I enjoyed this story. I know that some readers say that this is a bit long winded. I personally enjoyed it. The writing style is easy to follow and the story kept my interest. I am hoping that the author will continue this series with the Marshal as the lead because it would be something I would be very interested in.