A Different Dawn
A Different Dawn (Nina Guerrera #2)
By: Isabella Maldonado
“Nina realized she had been living her entire life on borrowed time. Now the moment had arrived when her story reached its end. Destiny had finally caught up to her.”
Leap day. People born on this day celebrate their birthdays in a variety of fun ways.
And some celebrate in not so fun ways— like murdering a mother, father, and newborn baby girl every four years.
A Leap day serial killer is the plot of book two in this series. Following her high profile case in book one, The Cipher, Nina Guerrera and her newly compiled FBI specialty team—made up of her, a criminal profiler, a computer wiz, and a former Navy SEAL— are investigating a double homicide/suicide case. The case escalates when possible ties to other double homicide/suicides across the country spanning decades are discovered and they realize they may have a bunch of triple murders on their hands!
Profiler Jeffrey Wade enlightens us on the mind of the suspected killer— a narcissist who also has Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD)- “A black hole is an accurate description of an untreated psychopathic narcissist.” And now they must track down this murderous black hole in the desert of Phoenix, Arizona before more people die or he hides away undetected for another 4 years.
The urgency increases as they begin unraveling threads, putting Agent Guerrera firmly in the killer’s sights, forcing her to come to terms with part of her past she never knew she needed to.
It lives up to the same intense and suspenseful storyline as the first one and I really enjoyed it. This is shaping up to be a great series! The characters were, again, distinct and developed. Nina is the focus but we see her relationship with Wade and Kent progress in this one. And am I the only one that thinks Bianca is going to be officially joining the team in the not so distant future?? I think that would be a great addition in characters and plot possibilities. (Although, I’d prefer she stop using the f-word if Maldonado is going to bulk up Bianca’s lines in the next book.)
There were some points in the book that I felt there to be a bit of hand-holding in defining terms. For example, they made it seem like a killer’s ‘signature’ was some new term law enforcement officers had never heard of before. Or when the Spanish phrase ‘Dónde están mis hijos?’ was used Kent translated it “That means, ‘where are my children” and then the book says “Nina recalled that he spoke four languages.” And the collective reader audience goes: “Uh, yeah. We only speak one and a half languages and we all know what that means. Pipe down Kent, we didn’t need you for this.” (Okay… it was either children or Cheetos but I think we would have figured it out)
For the learners out there, here are three interesting things I learned while reading (besides the characteristics of narcissism that I’m trying to stop pinning on everyone I know…just jokes…. It’s only a couple people...)—
Revenge filicide= Filicide is the technical term for the murder of one’s own offspring so revenge filicide is killing your child to get back at someone else. I’m glad I didn’t know this term before because if this was well-known, we would live in a very sad society indeed.
“People with ASPD only make up about one to three percent of the overall population, but they constitute anywhere from forty to seventy percent of those in prison.”
I found this statistic a bit shocking! Especially because after reading Just Mercy you kinda start feeling like we need to get everyone out of prison. I did a little googling on this stat and I did find a study that indicated ASPD rates in prison to be anywhere between 50-80% depending on the study (and probably method of diagnosing). This particular study was researching violent acts done in prison by newly imprisoned people with ASPD and actually found that number to be fairly low calling into question the legal push for capital punishment for violent offenders with ASPD. I don’t know if I’m convinced and this leads me to more questions than I can find answers for and really has nothing to do with this story, but ANYWAY, it’s fascinating stuff, yeah?Nuyorican—/n(y)o͞oˈyôrēkən/)= a Puerto Rican living in the US, especially in New York City
So, in summation, if you haven’t read The Cipher, head over there first and read this series from the beginning. If you’ve already read book one, then continue forth, fellow reader— I believe you will be glad you did!
**Received an ARC via NetGalley**
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