Dead Sky

A woman and her two foster children were brutally killed, and a suspect – Karl Dahl – got arrested. Judge Carey Moore rules that his prior criminal record is inadmissible as evidence against him, which causes a public outcry. And an unknown assailant attacks her in a parking garage, trying to kill her. The detectives Sam Kovac and Nikki Liska are tasked to investigate the attack and to keep her safe. But then Karl Dahl escapes from prison and Carey Moore gets kidnapped from her house, while the police is outside watching the house...

I enjoyed Dead Sky. It is well written and has an interesting plot with interesting characters. Only the transformation of Karl Dahl from a "normal" criminal into a serial killer was a bit unrealistic.

Quotes from the book

But overall, he didn't think he looked that bad. No beer gut. No hair sprouting out his ears. Women had never run screaming at the sight of him. At least none that weren't wanted for something.

To the unsuspecting, she looked sweet and perky. But the last guy to call her that had gone home from the party with a limp.

"Spill it, sweetie. I want to get home before menopause sets in."

"You should have stayed in the hospital. I'm taking you back." - "You're taking me home", she said stubbornly. "I can vomit without a medical professional supervising."

He had his own cell on the suicide-watch row. Still, he didn't feel safe. Jail was only meant to keep the common folk safe from the criminals. On the inside, nobody gave a shit if a man lived or died, especially a man like Karl himself.

"He's seventeen, he has a penis, definitely qualifies him for being stupid enough to mug a judge."

The sirens of cop cars were wailing all around, swarming like bees, out to get him. He was the most important man in town tonight. That was something that hadn't happened very often in his life.

Kovac didn't believe them, but then he rarely believed anyone. He was too accustomed to being lied to. Everybody lied to the cops, even the innocent.

"I don't like your attitude, Detective." - "Nobody does. Lucky for me, I don't give a rat's ass."

The bruising and swelling was coming out in his wife's face. She was beginning to look like something that might live under a bridge in a horror movie.

He looked like an unmade bed [...].

Karl fixed on her eyes, on the emotion in them. Sheer animal terror. He thought it must be horrible to die this way, looking into the face of your killer and finding no compassion, no sympathy.

"In case you hadn't noticed, I changed teams." - "Then why hasn't the quality of their work improved?"

"Even assholes have friends."

Everyday life was walking past him, he thought. People caught up in their own little dramas, unaware that the woman on the park bench they walked past was, in fact, the most wanted man in the city. Maybe in the whole country.

"It's my fault when you're unfaithful, but it's not your fault when I am?"

All the years of wading hip-deep in the excrement of criminal minds had taught him more about human nature than any Ph.D. in psychology could have.

Dumb as a sack of hair, this girl.

"Man, you have to be one of the all-time fools."

She should have been arrested for crimes against fashion.

With a mother like that, it was a wonder Jerome Walden wasn't already on the most-wanted list.

It was a nightmare, and the worst part of it was that she knew she was wide-awake.

There was so much blood, it looked as if someone had poured a gallon of red paint over his head.

"Don't upset yourself thinking about what didn't happen. You've got plenty of real shit to deal with."