The Fifth to Die

By: J. D. Barker

Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini, Graham Winton

Length: 15 hrs and 7 mins

Publisher's summary

Detective Porter and the team have been pulled from the hunt for Anson Bishop, the Four Monkey Killer, by the feds. When the body of a young girl is found beneath the frozen waters of Jackson Park Lagoon, she is quickly identified as Ella Reynolds, missing three weeks. But how did she get there? The lagoon froze months earlier. More baffling? She's found wearing the clothes of another girl, missing less than two days.

While the detectives of Chicago Metro try to make sense of the quickly developing case, Porter secretly continues his pursuit of 4MK, knowing the best way to find Bishop is to track down his mother. When the captain finds out about Porter's activities, he's suspended, leaving his partners, Clair and Nash, to continue the search for the new killer alone.

Obsessed with catching Bishop, Porter follows a single grainy photograph from Chicago to the streets of New Orleans and stumbles into a world darker than he could have possibly imagined, where he quickly realizes that the only place more frightening than the mind of a serial killer is the mind of the mother from which he came.

©2018 J. D. Barker (P)2018 Recorded Books

Excellent dark suspense mystery!

The Fourth Monkey, Book 1 in this Detective SAM Porter series, was one of my favorite suspense mysteries of 2017. I like THE FIFTH TO DIE a lot but not as much as The Fourth Monkey. I struggled whether to rate the novel 4 or 5 stars and settled on 4 stars. Narration is outstanding.

Exceptional

I sincerely hope this series will continue. Superb characters, plot, and surprises, with quality narration.

I have a problem with the ending.

Another reviewer suggested you re-listen to the 1st book in the series, and that's good advice- I kept getting confused and wished I had a synopsis to go back to. It's a good book, and the narration is fantastic...but I'm very disappointed with the ending. There's no satisfying closure. It just stops in mid-thought. Clearly this was someone's idea of an exciting cliff-hanger but I think it's just rude to do this to your audience. Give me a good ending and I'll come back for the next story. But instead, they (The writer? The editor? A summer intern?) cut it off in order to manipulate you to buy the next book. It's a bit insulting. Treat your readers better, please.

Better than the first

In my first review I said I had figured it out before the end. Then book 2 came. Wow! This series continues to twist, turn, and evolve. Excellent listen. I invented reasons to listen. This series brings complete satisfaction as you listen.

Riveting

The Fourth Monkey was good but The Fifth To Die is even better. Just when you think you know what is going on Barker throws in another twist and sends you on a new path which seldom goes where you expect. A real cliff hanger

If that's not a cliffhanger, I don't know what is.

I had a bit of a hard time keeping up with all the characters but this story was fantastic! I'll likely listen to it again before moving on to book 3. 4MK is a twisted, sadistic psychopath. The weaving of the story and characters going back 20+ years is phenomenal!

Giving the benefit of the doubt to this point.

Very entertaining plot and great performance. The Bad guy is almost supernatural. I hope at some point the author explains how he is able to do all he has been able to do.

Back and forth but neatly tying all together

The suspense read same book as my daughter our own little book club im glad so we could discuss characters

So good

Wow - all I can say is wow..................I read all three books in 36 hours - I could not stop.

The ending!!

Pretty good read, twists and turns throughout! I audibly cussed at the end!! Great book for filling time or a long drive.