A Forgotten Kill
A Forgotten Kill (Daniela Vega #2)
By: Isabella Maldonado
[On my list of Most Anticipated Books of 2024]
[Fulfilled ‘A book with an obscured face on the cover’ prompt as part of Shelf Reflection’s 2024 Reading Challenge]
“Warriors brought the battle to the enemy to keep others safe, and she was warrior. If that involved sacrificing herself, so be it.”
I loved Maldonado’s Nina Guerrera series and this one is no different. This book had a very different feel than book one- A Killer’s Game- but still had the same protagonist and suspense.
While this is second in the series, it could be read as a stand-alone. In the beginning it talks about Vega having to do polygraphs and such as follow-up from her previous mission because her actions required review, but they don’t go into any details.
There would be no spoilers other than that Vega survived the underground bunker maze of Hunger-Games-style fatal puzzles which isn’t really a surprise since she is the face of the series.
The premise of A Forgotten Kill is two-fold: a serial killer that has been operating in the New York boroughs undetected for years, and the violent death of Vega’s father in their home a decade ago.
We find out in the first book that Dani came home one day to find her mother over her father’s stabbed body. All the evidence pointed to her mother, who was mentally unstable, killing her father, who was physically unstable. Dani’s statement helped convict her mother who rather than going to trial was committed to a psyche ward.
But her mother has a moment of lucidity in present day and tells Vega that she didn’t do it. Now that Vega is older with more criminology experience, she decides to look into the case and see if there is any truth to what her mother is telling her.
In order to have access to the case files she agrees to help with a possible serial killer case. Her knowledge of cryptanalysis and puzzles helps her crack it open and takes her and her team on a fast-paced investigation to capture him before he kills again.
I liked the second half better than the first half of the book. At 50% it seemed like things were wrapping up and I was wondering how the last half was going to go to keep me engaged. But the action picked up and the snags in the process extend the chase wrapping up the book quite nicely!
I also like that Maldonado is able to write thrillers where the main character doesn’t have to have a side love story. That’s fine and all, but sometimes it’s nice just to focus on the action and not worry about the romantic side of things. It’s possible something could develop here, there is some groundwork laid that could support that direction, but her character feels full even without that because of her closeness to her family.
Maldonado’s expertise in the criminology field really shines through in her books. Sometimes I found myself questioning- Well why didn’t they just do this? Or wouldn’t this have worked better? and she ends up qualifying those decisions later and setting me straight! She covers her bases, does her research, and creates a realistic investigation and chase that is compelling and engaging!
After reading the first book, I had thought maybe Dani’s siblings would start to play a bigger role in the stories, but they were pretty absent from this book. As the series continues, I’m still hoping for a Vega Sibling Dream Team moment.
I did learn some new things in this book:
Dogs not only can sniff out drugs, but now they can sniff out electronics! They can detect the chemical compounds used in electronics. So that’s pretty cool!
I already knew about 3D printing, but I’m discovering more and more uses for it. For example, they needed a person’s fingerprints to open something and they had the fingerprint in the AFIS database so they 3D printed the fingerprint so they could use it. Pretty crazy! And also, a little bit uncomfortable knowing that anyone can have a 3D printer and can gain access to people’s fingerprints…
You can extract DNA even from clothing years later that has been washed.
Julian dates- this was the trick that Vega figured out in one of the puzzles and for some reason it took me awhile to understand. I didn’t realize this was still used anywhere. It’s a five digit date beginning with the last two digits of the year followed by the day of the year out of 365 (changes on leap years). The military uses this for ease in subtracting or adding dates together without access to a calendar or spreadsheet.
I think I heard about the Vigenere square tool when I read the book The Rose Code, but it was used here again and I just think encryption like that is so cool. Here is a website that walks you through it if you want to create your own code!
Recommendation
Maldonado is basically an automatic read for me. She writes great thrillers without all the language and sexual content often found in other books. Her background in criminology is a vast resource for creating her characters and plots.
If you are looking for a book that has a (female) detective and FBI stuff, this is a great option! If you are looking for a book with a serial killer, this is a great option!
The only reason I would not recommend this book would be if the type of serial killer he is a trigger for you or would be too hard to read. Any discussion around the rape/murders is pretty much all third-party and clinical so it’s not too graphic or drawn out, but we do hear some of the killer’s thoughts regarding the women and what triggered him to begin doing what he’s doing.
Overall, this is a great series to start or to go back and read some of Maldonado’s other books!
[Content Advisory: 8 f-words and 19 s-words, the serial killer in this one is a voyeur and rapes his victims on camera before killing them and so there are different descriptions of this as the police are tracking down evidence.]
**Received an ARC via NetGalley**
This book just releases March 26, 2024. You can pre-order a copy of this book using my affiliate link below.
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