The 9th Girl

By: Tami Hoag

Narrated by: David Colacci

Length: 13 hrs and 11 mins

Publisher's summary

"Kovac had seen more dead bodies than he could count: men, women, children; victims of shootings, stabbings, strangulations, beatings; fresh corpses and bodies that had been left for days in the trunks of cars in the dead of summer. But he had never seen anything quite like this...."

On a frigid New Year’s Eve in Minneapolis, a young woman’s brutalized body falls from the trunk of a car into the path of oncoming traffic. Questions as to whether she was alive or dead when she hit the icy pavement result in her macabre nickname, Zombie Doe. Unidentified and unidentifiable, she is the ninth nameless female victim of the year, and homicide detectives Sam Kovac and Nikki Liska are charged with the task of not only finding out who Zombie Doe is but who in her life hated her enough to destroy her. Was it personal? Or could it just have been a crime of opportunity? Their greatest fear is that not only is she their ninth Jane Doe of the year but that she may be the ninth victim of a vicious, transient serial killer they have come to call Doc Holiday. Crisscrossing America’s heartland, Doc Holiday chooses his victims at random, snatching them in one city and leaving them in another, always on a holiday. If Zombie Doe is one of his victims, he has brought his gruesome game to a new and more terrifying level. But as Kovac and Liska begin to uncover the truth, they will find that the monsters in their ninth girl’s life may have lived closer to home. And even as another young woman disappears, they have to ask the question: Which is the greater evil - the devil you know or the devil you don’t?

©2013 Tami Hoag (P)2013 Brilliance Audio, Inc.

Total Suspense...Loved It!

Ms Hoag continues to keep me riveted as I continued reading this series. Her characters are developed in such a way that from time to time, one can't seem to figure out totally who has done the deed.

Another Great TH Book

This book kept me on my toes the entire listen. You will not go wrong with this choice.

captivating

loved this, kept me guessing until the end. the narrators were very good, the story was fast paced and had a couple of plot lines

Not Fond of Narrator, Characters Sterotypical

Zombie Doe, a young girl who had been tortured and was dead or nearly dead by New Years Eve, is thrown from the trunk of a dark sedan into the path of a party limousine. If she wasn't dead before she certainly was after she fell into a snarl of holiday traffic. Thus begins another of the Nikki and Sam serial killer adventures set in midwinter Minnesota.

Pros: Hoag is a competent writer so I don't regret buying and listening to this novel.

Cons: This is a narrator that I am not familiar with and I don't particularly care for his reading style. His female voices are particularly annoying.

The characters are lacking in development. I really had no emotional attachment to the kids (and Hoag generally does kids well) or to any of the victims. Usually there is a bit of ambiguity about the adult characters in her previous books leading to suspense, but it was clear right off who the bad guys were.

I also think that Hoag made a mistake making this a "message" story. There was a theme involving bullying in high school that sometimes had me skipping pages. I would cheerfully have turned most of the kids over to the serial killer. Georges St. Pierre got mentioned a lot and I finally broke down and googled him while writing this.

I missed the Sam and Tinks' (Nikki) cohesiveness as a Homicide partnership present in most of the other books. Tinks and Sam both seemed tired. The numerous references to the daughter that Sam gave up to his ex-wife as a infant made me wonder if this was foreshadowing a future book.

I don't regret the time I spent reading this book, but I'm certainly not going to reread it like I have many of her prior suspense novels.

3.75 stars - Mystery, Suspense and Drama

HE 9th GIRL is the fourth installment in Tami Hoag's contemporary crime series focusing on the high profile murder investigations in and around a fictional police precinct in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Although The 9th Girl is part of a series, each novel is a stand alone story of mystery and crime. The story-lines are graphically detailed and the descriptive narration leaves nothing to the imagination. The 9th Girl focuses on a string of murders all pointing to a serial killer but the latest victim's identity hits too close to home.

Tami Hoag has combined the intrigue of a murder investigation with all the hallmarks of a television episode befitting Law and Order, Dexter and CSI. Add the camaraderie and anxiety of a close knit group of investigators, detectives and police detectives and you have the formula for a story of suspense, mystery and the criminally insane.

The story-line focuses on the recent murder of a young woman and its connections to a series of murders-all with a similar MO. As the investigation moves forward, all clues begin to point to something more personal and familiar.

The story-line also pulls into play the social media and online bullying seen in many recent headline news stories around the world using teen texting, Facebook cyber stalking and the viral propaganda of the powerful and rich. Where once bullying remained in the playgrounds and schoolyards it is brought onto the world stage through social media and shown to be a breeding ground for viral innuendo, discrimination and personal attacks. Even the dead are not protected from abuse and bullies.

The 9th Girl is first and foremost a story of suspense, mystery and criminal intent. Tami Hoag weaves the intricate details of a serial killer with some of today's headline stories and heartbreaking pain. If you love a mystery with a twist, The 9th Girl delivers.

My only complaint was at times there was a lot of internal dialogue especially in the first half of the book. It drives me nuts when you have to hear 20 minutes of this dialogue from a teenage boy or the same about why a mother feels guilty for having to work. The second half of the book redeemed the story and it was a good listen.

David Colacci was good with the delivery of the story.

Awesome author!

Tami writes about characters I want to visit time and time again. Loved it! Looking forward to more.

Good mystery thriller!

What made the experience of listening to The 9th Girl the most enjoyable?

I enjoy this narrator and his ability to change his voices. The story has a lot of violence, but also some pretty good messages of acceptance, family love and tolerance, and some humorous banter between the detectives helps keep it light. Tami Hoag's detective team of Kovac and Listka are great characters.

What was one of the most memorable moments of The 9th Girl?

I started putting many of the author's clues together and had the "aha! moment" before Hoag actually lets you know who is the villian.

What does David Colacci bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

He makes the characters come to life, and I think he does a really fabulous job voicing Kovac.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

No. It's over a dozen hours long.

everyone s opinion counts

Another good story more humor and great kines. poetry was meaninful throughout the book. another new story and glad I listened to 3.5 first. kept me wanting more.

Loved this book!

I loved this book! Kept me interested through the whole book. The story was good and I love the narration. Very good with female voices. This was my first book with this author. Looking at the next one in this series. Tami Hoag is a very good writer.

Great read

Another good one from Tami. Entertaining and engaging from start to finish. Love this narrator.