Grade: 4 out of 5

Now in The Murder Notebook police sketch artist Nate Rodriguez has visions of two crimes- one past, one present- and continues his winning combination of nail biting suspense and original art. Nate Rodriguez has earned the reputation of being brilliant and possibly psychic with his ability to draw near-perfect likenesses often on nothing more than a single witness detail, his own inner eye, and his intuition. When he is asked to create a facial reconstruction for a skull found in a burned-out building, Nate seizes the opportunity to put his FBI forensic art training to use. What he does not expect is that the skull–and the face he eventual creates–will take him into his past. But his life is about to get more complicated when homicide detective Terri Russo taps him to assist on a high-profile murder/suicide case and the sketch he provides leads the NYPD to a suspect only hours before a second murder/suicide occurs. Now it’s up to Nate to prove a connection between the cases that no one else wants to make. With the body count escalating and plagued by nightmare images that have an uncanny resemblance to the murders he is investigating, Nate makes a shocking discovery that brings him dangerously close to highly-confidential military and government programs. Now, more than ever, he knows he must unravel the link between the murder/suicides to expose a shocking secret before more innocent lives–including his own–are lost. With The Murder Notebook, Santlofer once again pushes the boundaries of the thriller in this masterful blend of art and suspense that make him “one of the most intriguing and innovative crime-fiction writers to come along in years.”

I’ve never read a mystery before. I’m such a girly girl that I thought I would miss the romance in the story but that wasn’t the case with this story at all. I enjoyed this story. It was like reading an episode of Law and Order. I was loving it so much that every time a chapter ended, I heard the Law and Order chime in my head, you know this one:

I will definitely be checking out more mystery novels thanks to Mr. Santlofer. He’s a popular author among the hotties at my work, Crush Boy is definitely one of Mr. Santlofer’s fans and it was nice to have a conversation with him on a book that he’s been looking forward to coming out. He’s read some of the other Nate Rodriguez stories and he’s going to let me borrow some so that I can them for myself and I’m actually looking forward to it.

Nate Rodriguez is something else. I enjoyed reading his thoughts and getting to know him and reading his side of things was such a different experience for me because he is SO different from the characters I usually read about. First of all, he was a male and so I was getting a first person look into the male mind and second he wasn’t bat shit crazy trying to karate chop some crazy ex wife of her fiance’s. He’s a normal forensic sketch artist trying to solve a bunch of murders and I don’t think I could write this review without giving everything away, ruining the story for you so I’m just going to say this:

I really enjoyed this book, I enjoyed the characters, I enjoyed Nate and I enjoyed reading this entire story. It was, what’s the word…gripping? It had me at the edge of my seat and wanting to find out what was going to happen next. It was pretty trippy how everything came together but it was a good story. It reminded me of a mix between CSI, Law & Order and one of the things I really enjoyed while reading this book was seeing the sketches Mr. Santlofer included with the story.

A book with pictures in it, I haven’t read one of these in such a long time but the sketches weren’t corny or stupid, they added more to the story and it brought the story more into focus for me.

Would I recommend this book? Heck yes…it was a great first mystery story to get hooked on and though I enjoyed the book a lot, I’m still a romance reader through and through. But I would like to read more JS books.

This book is available from William Morrow. You can buy it here.