Lisa
Gardner's latest novel has something to terrify everyone. Pick your
poison: Spiders. Abducted children. Spiders. Sexual abuse. Spiders.
Put it all in the frame of a smartly plotted and compellingly told
tale and you have a winner, one that you won't put down from
beginning to end, other than to brush the imaginary crawling things
off yourself.

SAY GOODBYE heralds the return of the extended Quincy family, with
the focus this time on FBI Special Agent Kimberly Quincy. Gardner
has a winning formula with the Quincys, one that enables her to
concentrate on a different member of the family in each novel while
keeping the others as supporting characters. While each of them is
memorable in his or her own way, it's Kimberly who is perhaps the
most complex. She's not entirely likable, a bit too
high-maintenance in a relationship, even under the best of
circumstances.

Kimberly is several months' pregnant at the start of the book; if
one perhaps was expecting her impending motherhood to scrub the
hard edges off her, one would be sorely disappointed. That,
however, is in many ways a good thing in SAY GOODBYE, as she is in
the middle of a case involving missing prostitutes in which no one,
except Kimberly, seems to care. A young prostitute who goes by the
name Delilah Rose is placed under arrest and claims that she is
Kimberly's informant. Kimberly does not know the woman but is drawn
into the matter when Delilah claims to have knowledge about a
bizarre John with a penchant for spiders who is linked to the
disappearance and probable murder of a number of young women.

Though initially reluctant, Kimberly feels some empathy for
Delilah, given that Delilah herself is pregnant and that Kimberly's
mother and sister were both victims of a serial killer. Kimberly
throws herself totally into the case, at the risk of her health and
her marriage. Her husband Mac has issues of his own, having been
offered a promotion that would require them to relocate, and she is
beginning to feel parallels between her own career and that of her
father's, whose years with the FBI wrecked his marriage.

Kimberly gradually moves closer and closer to uncovering the
murderer's identity, drawn in part by some enigmatic, eerie
telephone calls from a young boy who sounds as if he is phoning for
help and who may be in the process of being groomed as the killer's
successor. As matters race to a riveting conclusion, she finds that
the assailant is targeting others besides prostitutes and that one
of his targets in particular is extremely close to home.

Gardner begins SAY GOODBYE by dropping clues throughout that unify
the story, and then dropping surprises --- if you call explosions
surprises --- that slowly complete the tale during the second half.
You will see some of them coming, but many of them you won't. There
is one particular bombshell dropped in the last couple of pages (no
peeking!) that says a lot about the enduring nature of evil and the
acts performed in its name. There are many subtle and tangential
references to arachnoids as well. I won't give you any examples
here, as part of the enjoyment of the book is picking up on these
as you go along.

A great many of the chapters are also prefaced with little factoids
about spiders, most of which will do absolutely nothing to help you
sleep without checking your bed sheets a few times per night. The
most frightening monsters, however, have two legs, not eight, and
thus are deserving of greater scrutiny. You won't read SAY GOODBYE
without drawing your children just a bit closer to you every hour
of every day.