Monkeewrench by PJ Tracy

From the Publisher
Haunted by a series of horrifying and violent episodes in their past, Grace McBride and the oddball crew of her software company, Monkeewrench, create a computer game where the killer is always caught, where the good guys always win. But their game becomes a nightmare when someone starts duplicating the fictional murders in real life, down to the last detail.

By the time the police realize what's happening, three people are dead, and with seventeen more murder scenarios available online, there are seventeen more potential victims. While the authorities scramble to find the killer in a city paralyzed by fear, the Monkeewrench staff are playing their own game, analyzing victim profiles in a frantic attempt to discover the murderer's next target.

In a thriller populated by characters both hilarious and heartbreaking, a rural Wisconsin sheriff, two Minneapolis police detectives, and Grace's gang are caught in a web of decades-old secrets that could get them all killed.

My Comments:

I LOVED this book. Love love loved it! My bookgroup was all abuzz over it probably close to a year ago and here I am, finally getting around to this fantastic thriller! Better late then never definitely applies here.

The best side benefit of having a nasty sinus infection is the down time spent reading. Monkeewrench certainly helped me on the road to good health by distracting me from my disagreeable sinus passages.

The premise of the computer game was very interesting. I'm a closet computer gamer. Shhhh! Don't tell anyone. But the characters really drew me in. Especially the Monkeewrench crew. Fun, rich characters that you enjoy getting to know and feel compassion for.

Okay, it's a mystery right? So how far into it did I figure out whodunit? I'm pretty slow trying to figure things out generally. I like to just enjoy the ride and let the story unfold. I had an idea about a hundred pages from the end, but thanks to twists and turns you just don't see coming it was an exciting ending to say the least.

I can't wait to read Live Bait, the next in the series. Oh, and did I mention the author is a mother/daughter writing team? I love that!

Keep it or Pass it On?

My husband must read this book, and I'm sure I'll be loaning it out once or twice more before giving it to Paperbackswap.com. Not because I didn't enjoy it, but because the ending was so exciting, there's no way I'll forget who did it, and a re-read probably isn't in my future. Besides, this book must be shared!