Deeper Than The Dead by Tami Hoag

Book Description
California, 1984. Three children, running in the woods behind their school, stumble upon a partially buried female body, eyes and mouth glued shut. Close behind the children is their teacher, Anne Navarre, shocked by this discovery and heartbroken as she witnesses the end of their innocence. What she doesn't yet realize is that this will mark the end of innocence for an entire community, as the ties that bind families and friends are tested by secrets uncovered in the wake of a serial killer's escalating activity.

Detective Tony Mendez, fresh from a law enforcement course at FBI headquarters, is charged with interpreting those now revealed secrets. He's using a new technique-profiling-to develop a theory of the case, a strategy that pushes him ever deeper into the lives of the three children, and closer to the young teacher whose interest in recent events becomes as intense as his own.

As new victims are found and the media scrutiny of the investigation bears down on them, both Mendez and Navarre are unsure if those who suffer most are the victims themselves-or the family and friends of the killer, blissfully unaware that someone very close to them is a brutal, calculating psychopath.

My thoughts
1985 – A different time. A time when it wasn’t as easy to track a criminal as it is today. The FBI behavioral sciences unit was just in its beginning stages and DNA analysis hadn’t even started. Forget about having a fingerprint database, the police didn’t have computers. So when three young kids literally stumble onto the partially buried body of woman, all hell breaks loose. Not only may there be a serial killer on the loose; can the killer be stopped before another woman is murdered. What is the connection to a local center for women? And don’t forget the children and the trauma suffered by them. Tami Hoag as developed a multi-faceted novel with “Deeper than the Dead”. Not only did I wanted to know who the killer was (she has you twisting and turning), I wanted to see how the children were going to react to this traumatic event. I have enjoyed her books in the past and this one is no different. It is an exhilarating story.