Die With Me - Softcover

Elena Forbes has lived most of her life in London. After reading Modern Languages at Bristol University she worked as a portfolio manager for international investment banks. She now writes full time and lives in Notting Hill with her husband and two children. The first chapter and synopsis of Die With Me was shortlisted for a debut dagger in 2005.

*Starred Review* A murderer is loose on the streets of London, and it's up to Detective Inspector Mark Tartaglia to find him before he takes another innocent life. The perpetrator DI Tartaglia seeks is both sinister and smart, as evidenced by his MO: he convinces lonely, depressed women to join him in a suicide pact, then kills them instead. ("Tom"—as he calls himself—commiserates with his suggestible victims over the Internet, lures them to a balcony or bridge, then pushes them to their deaths). DI Tartaglia believes in following his hunches. But his trademark confidence is rattled when his ailing chief inspector is replaced by one Carolyn Steele, smart, experienced, and as seemingly unflappable as her name suggests. DCI Steele hardly fosters goodwill when she hires a slick psychological profiler. But when she begins receiving chilling e-mails from "Tom," Tartaglia and his colleagues realize they must set their feelings aside and crack the case—posthaste. A failed romance with a forensic pathologist only adds to the hardships faced by Tartaglia, who is forever dodging his sister's efforts to set him up. British debut author Forbes, a former investment banker, renders crisp prose, a clever plot, and an unsettling portrait of a charismatic psychopath. She is definitely one to watch. Block, Allison