WHAT DOESN'T KILL HER

A kidnapping victim must use her insight into her former captor to catch him after he escapes from a psychiatric hospital.

Reeve LeClaire, nee Regina, earned herself the nickname Edgy Reggie for her harsh look at the trial of her kidnapper, Daryl Wayne Flint. Four years of captivity and abuse took the vulnerability out of Reeve and made her strong enough to watch as Flint was sentenced to Olshaker Psychiatric Hospital rather than prison. Years later, Reeve has worked through some of her bottled-up feelings by helping a fellow victim (The Edge of Normal, 2013), and she’s moved on to start college in San Francisco. She’s concentrated on what’s hardest—trusting people—and has even managed to make a few new friends when her world is upended once more by the news that Flint has escaped the psych hospital. Knowing that she has a special connection to Flint, or rather, that he does to her, Reeve is drawn back to Seattle to try to understand what’s happened. The FBI doesn’t want her help, but when Flint kills just 24 hours after his escape, they have no choice but to see how important her knowledge is. Reeve, already wary of trusting others, has no interest in working with the feds, but her value to the case emboldens her to ask for Agent Milo Bender to help with her investigation. Reeve knows Bender as a kind face from her childhood rescue days, and though early retirement has put him out of commission, this particular case and his loyalty to Reeve make him willing to step up. Going on pure intuition, the two try to match Flint’s motivation to a greater plan and figure him out before he can get to them.

In spite of allowing the second entry in the series to tap into emotional back stories that might better have been saved for later, Norton writes smart characters and cleverly leaves herself room for a sequel.