Who Is Killing Charlie Grant's BFFs?

Catch Me - Lisa Gardner

Boston Homicide's D. D. Warren is not about to let a case of the postpartum blues slow her down, no, not one step. But this latest case is… just plain weird. Oh, one more dead pedophile is nothing new; but the woman she meets at the murder scene, a woman who's come to see the cop she expects to investigate her own murder? Now, there's a first.

Charlie Grant's two BFFs were murdered exactly one year apart on January 21st, both cases still unsolved. With just a few days left before she expects to meet her own death on that wintry date, Charlie's gone underground in Beantown. She's turned herself into a lean, mean, fighting machine and armed herself for bear - but she's still certain she knows what date will be carved to the right of the dash on her tombstone. That's when she comes on Warren's radar; not because she seems afraid but she seems somehow… guilty.

Charlie's life story is anything but simple: she survived her mother's Münchausen's by Proxy¹ as a child; ultimately being raised by a doting aunt after her mother stabbed her, set the house on fire, and disappeared into the night when Charlie was just eight. Was that troubled childhood enough to make Charlie a stone killer, perhaps her psyche as warped as her mother's? Warren and Detective O., on loan from sex crimes, find themselves half-convinced that Charlie is not what she seems… and they could be right.
Catch Me is the sixth D. D. Warren novel from New Hampshire author Lisa Gardner (following Love You More and followed by Fear Nothing). Gardner also wrote the Pierce/Kimberly Quincy Series (The Next Accident - the Quincys make cameo appearances in Catch Me) and a handful of standalones; as well as having penned a series of romance novels under the name Alicia Scott. Warren, fortyish, is a brand new mother (of the unmarried variety) with parent issues and a small but doughty squad of BPD detectives.

As is apparently de rigeuer for modern crime fiction, Gardner's plot for Catch Me requires the intersection of two apparently unrelated murder cases. That's not to mention the involvement of not only just one rare but highly popular psychological condition (MSbP) but also that favorite of mystery writers, a serial killer. Gardner manages to pull off a tough assignment: making a serial killer just a wee bit sympathetic, given that s/he likes to put a bullet in the brain of pedophiles and sexual predators. In the process of laying out her plot, she publishes a couple of paragraphs that really should be required reading for every parent who lets a child go online. Makes me glad not to have little kids in the age of the internet!

Although D. D. Warren is Catch Me's title character, the true protagonist is Charlene Rosalind Carter Grant; enough so that Gardner writes Charlie's narrative in first person while writing Warren's sections in third. In spite of a "tightly-wound" personality (pretty much understandable under the circumstances), Charlie comes off as a highly sympathetic character, even when Warren et al.  are "liking her" as a murderer. Of course, her kindness to animals cements her as an all-around good guy… Segments focused on Warren's family life (complete with her puzzled and puzzling parents) are intended, presumably, to soften the hard edges of her top cop persona. Gardner demonstrates a good handle on creation of sympathetic characters, people with whom readers can find common ground.
When it comes to plotting, Catch Me seems a tad weaker. The novel is clearly character-driven and, as a result, the plot is somewhat thin. That's not to say that the premises aren't inventive, regardless of the plot's dependence on some hackneyed themes, but to this reader the manner in which the killer is revealed and the manner in which s/he was inserted into the plot strain credulity. The willing suspension of disbelief works - is actually a requirement - for SciFi, but when it comes to crime fiction this reader needs a little more reality and a little less reliance on that particular cognitive process.

Overall, Catch Me has characters that resound combined with some inventive premises, but is marred by introduction of an improbable villain.

¹ Münchausen Syndrome by Proxy (MSbP) is a psychological malady orders of magnitude more common in fiction than in real life: a caregiver (usually a mother) causes illness and injury in his/her charge in order to get attention and sympathy for him/herself. 

Summary

Plus: premise and characters
Minus: improbable villain
What They're Saying: Catch Me has likable characters and an inventive premise, but that villain? Gimme a break...

copyright © 2019 scmrak