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Last Seen Alive: Ellery Hathaway #5    by Joanna Schaffhausen Amazon.com order for
Last Seen Alive
by Joanna Schaffhausen
Order:  USA  Can
Minotaur, 2022 (2022)
Hardcover, e-Book
* * *   Reviewed by Hilary Williamson

Last Seen Alive follows Every Waking Hour as the fifth in Joanna Schaffhausen's mystery series featuring Ellery Hathaway and FBI Agent Reed Markham. As a teen, Ellery was taken and brutalized by serial killer Francis Coben. She was eventually rescued by Reed. Ellery changed her identity and trained as a police officer, but later reunited with Reed.

As this fifth episode opens, Coben (on death row) has offered to reveal the location of the bodies of his eight victims IF Reed brings the one who got away to him. At the same time, Kate Hunter wants to interview Ellery for her TV show, On the Hunt. She plans to put Coben on camera as well. Prison authorities have agreed. Reed warns her, 'You cannot call up the devil and ask him to dance.'

After a fresh victim is found, with Coben's signature all over the murder, Ellery agrees to talk to the psychopath. She and Reed end up searching Coben's farm and find yet another body. After a severe food poisoning outbreak at the prison, all hell breaks loose with Coben pulling the strings, and more deaths. This time though, Ellery isn't the only strong woman fighting back - and she gets a happy ending.

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