Finally Detective D.D Warren has managed to fit a date into her job obsessed life. But as she’s only thinking of one thing, and wondering how fast she can get there, she’s summoned to a brutal crime scene where evidence points to a man killing his entire family, and then himself. Only it’s not a simple as it seems. The suspect has thrown in a monkey wrench and killed each victim with a different MO. Something that Warren has never encountered before. As she digs her heels into the case, not 48 hours later tragedy strikes again, as another family is killed in nearly the exact fashion.

Danielle loves her job on the pediatric psych ward, and she’s good at it. Sometimes it’s the only thing that keeps her from going crazy. But as the anniversary of her family’s brutal killing creeps closer, she’s finding it harder than ever to hang on to her sanity. She can’t seem to stop replaying that night in her mind’s eye, causing her to falter at her job, something she can’t afford to do or children die. Just when she thinks she can’t handle anything else, there are the two mass murders that eerily hit too close to home and send the police calling.

Victoria is just trying to stay alive. But it’s hard when every time she turns around, her eight year old son is trying to kill her. But what she doesn’t know is that the day he puts her in the hospital, is the day that reveals her son might be the missing link the police need to bring a mass killer to light.

The more I read Gardner’s D.D Warren series, the more I wonder why she’s the fixture of a series in the first place. Warren is not well developed. In this fourth installment, all we seem to know is that she’s a workaholic detective that puts job first and everything else last. Live to Tell is told through the eyes of three different women, our heroine, Danielle and Victoria, where it jumps from each’s perspective, loads up suspects at a whim and teases at the heat that could flare between some of the characters. The plot is good, you never get lost and you’re kept guessing. It’s definitely one of Gardner’s better books, her passion for the story clearly present, and perhaps the hard-to-take subject matter (especially if you’re a parent) might make this her best yet.

I keep wondering however, will we ever get to what makes Warren tick?