Stuck on I-35 south of Austin, heading to a site survey for a new manufacturing plant. Traffic was a parking lot—standard operating procedure for Texas afternoons. Usually, I'd be fuming, staring at the bumper in front of me, but I had Jar of Hearts running. Honestly? I didn't mind the delay.
The Asset: Georgina Shaw
Let's get one thing straight immediately. Georgina Shaw isn't a hero. She's not the plucky girl next door who stumbled into a mystery. She went to federal prison for a reason. She helped bury a body. As a security guy, I appreciate that. I'm tired of thrillers where the protagonist is a perfect angel with zero tactical awareness. Geo is compromised. She made bad calls—fatal ones—because she was obsessed with the wrong guy. Regulators has a similar cast of morally bankrupt characters making catastrophic decisions.
Jennifer Hillier writes Geo with enough grit that you don't hate her, but you definitely wouldn't trust her with your wallet. Or your secrets. It's a rare balance. Most authors try too hard to make you like the "anti-hero." Hillier just presents the facts and lets you deal with the mess. Felt like reading a redacted file where the black ink finally got washed off.
The Audio Intel
January LaVoy. Hadn't heard her before. She's got range. And I don't mean she just does funny accents. There's a distinct difference between the voice she uses for 16-year-old Geo—naive, desperate, a little whiny—and the 30-year-old ex-con Geo, who sounds like she's been smoking cheap cigarettes and staring at concrete walls for five years.
The transition is smooth. You don't need the chapter headers to know when you are. And when she voices Calvin James—the serial killer? It's not that over-the-top cartoon villain growl. It's calm. Controlled. That's scarier. I've interviewed guys who've done terrible things. The quiet ones are the ones you watch. LaVoy nails that unnerving, flat affect.
Tactical Assessment
This isn't a "whodunit." We know who did it. Calvin James is the bad guy. The tension comes from the why and the how. It's about the collateral damage. The timeline jumps back and forth—usually, that confuses me, especially at 1.25x speed while dodging distracted drivers in F-150s. But here, it works. Like piecing together an after-action report. You know the body count; now you need to understand the failure points that led there.
It gets dark. My wife Linda would hate this. From Dead to Worse doesn't pull punches either when it comes to the visceral stuff. There are details about the murders that are... graphic. If you're squeamish about what happens to a human body when a psychopath gets creative, skip this one. But if you want to see how a regular suburban life goes off the rails into a nightmare? This is the manual.
Mission Complete
Ranger was asleep in the back seat for most of this, but I was wired. By the time I hit the San Antonio city limits, I'd finished the book. Didn't even stop for coffee. That's the highest praise I can give.
