Book Review: Last Breath by Robert Bryndza

Detective Erika Foster is back in Last Breath and Bryndza delivers another exciting crime thriller.

Book Description:

He’s your perfect date. You’re his next victim.

When the tortured body of a young woman is found in a dumpster, her eyes swollen shut and her clothes soaked with blood, Detective Erika Foster is one of the first at the crime scene. The trouble is, this time, it’s not her case.

While she fights to secure her place on the investigation team, Erika can’t help but get involved and quickly finds a link to the unsolved murder of a woman four months earlier. Dumped in a similar location, both women have identical wounds – a fatal incision to their femoral artery.

Stalking his victims online, the killer is preying on young pretty women using a fake identity. How will Erika catch a murderer who doesn’t seem to exist?

Then another girl is abducted while waiting for a date. Erika and her team must get to her before she becomes another dead victim, and, come face to face with a terrifyingly sadistic individual.

Gripping, tense and impossible to put down, Last Breath will have you on the edge of your seat, racing to the final dramatic page.

My Thoughts:

The formalities first: this is the fourth book in the Erika Foster series but yes, you can read this book as a standalone – I think of the entire series, this one can probably work best as a standalone, we don’t get so much of Erika’s personal life in this book as we did in the previous book – ‘Dark Water’ – so you don’t get that ‘left out of the loop’ feeling that often comes when you start a series a few books in. Saying that, I cannot stress enough, that you should read this entire series in order, each book is exciting and to follow the backstories of all the characters, it’s best to start with book one – ‘The Girl in the Ice.’

A chilling series of murders, young girls are being mutilated, murdered and dumped. Erika leads the team, that I have come to know and love, on the case. The plot is engaging and chilling throughout – we find out pretty early on who the killer is, but that heightened the tension because we get to see how close the team come to catching this killer, yet they just can’t come close enough.

What I really like about this book [and series] is, it has a strong plot and strong characters, one is not reliant on the other to make a good book, meaning this book holds your attention throughout, there are no dull moments. I have really enjoyed Erika’s character development throughout this series and in Last Breath, we see a new side to Erika, one that shows her in, perhaps, a more vulnerable light, while still being determined, flawed and likeable – you can’t help but root for her. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Erika is one of my favourite fictional detectives and while I really enjoyed this book, I did prefer the previous book – ‘Dark Water’ – for the simple fact that we don’t see as much of Erika’s backstory/personal life in this book. For the masses, this book has an adequate amount of ‘backstory’ but I could read an entire book, without a case, just on Erika’s personal life alone, so don’t think, you don’t get insights into her personal life here because you do – it’s just my personal preference, and me being a little Erika Foster obsessed!

There’s a note from Bryndza at the end of the book and in part of it, he asks readers what they think should happen next – do we want Erika and Peterson to settle down and live happily ever after? Should Erika’s past come back to haunt her? So, Mr Bryndza, I would love Erika and Peterson to settle down together but they both must remain working for the Murder Investigation Team, and it’s almost impossible to outrun your past so yes, Erika’s past should definitely come back to haunt her. She’s a bad-ass protagonist and I’m sure she could handle it!

This is one of my favourite crime series; I highly recommend it to fans of police procedurals and crime thrillers and I’m looking forward to book five.

This book is available to buy from: Amazon UK

*My thanks to the author (Robert Bryndza) and publisher (Bookouture) for granting me access to a digit copy of this book via Netgalley*

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The Detective Erika Foster series in order:

#1 The Girl in the Ice

#2 The Night Stalker

#3 Dark Water

#4 Last Breath