The Body Keeper (Detective Jude Fontaine Mysteries #3)

I\’m a little sad that this is the end, I\’d definitely read more Jude books! I don\’t know if I\’d classify it as a truly happy ending for Jude (is that possible with all that she\’s been through?), but I\’m satisfied with the way things were left. It was kind of nice reading about a massive blizzard while I\’m sweltering in 90 degree heat. I love how Anne Frasier makes the setting a real part of her books. The story is as horrible as it is bizarre: a body frozen beneath a lake is determined to have been dead for 20 years, child trafficking, a four year old boy with no name abandoned in a blizzard. They\’re all connected, and as each layer is revealed the story becomes more twisted. The villains in this book are truly awful people. Jude continues to makes strides in her personal life. She and Uriah are as much friends as partners, and Uriah\’s health problems make Jude see how much he means to her. She comes to depend on Elliot a great deal as well, though there\’s still and undercurrent of suspicion there. The bombshell about him that was dropped at the end of book two didn\’t affect Jude to the degree I thought it would, and I think that\’s progress on her part. Jude taking care of the little boy tugged on my heartstrings, they turned out to be really good for each other. This has been a fantastic series, and I can\’t wait to read what Anne Frasier writes next.

I have always loved Anne Frasier. Have read all of her books and enjoyed every one. The new Jude Fontaine series, I believe is Anne Frasier at her absolute best. She has creates such an intricate character and we are swept away with her trials and tribulations, her mod swings, her tragic history, her fight for justice for the victims, her sense of right and wrong, her caring personality even though she rarely shows it and most of all how she struggled to come back to some semblance of life. This 3rd installment was chilling. It was dark, and mysterious and heart wrenching. We see Jude become someone who does have the emotional capacity to care not only with the Boy but also with Uriah. I truly could not put this book down. However, I am so sad that this is the end of this wonderful character and all of the stories that could be told about her and the rest of the characters that inhabit her world. Thank you Anne Frasier for many amazing stories and the time spent enjoying them. Maybe if enough of your loyal fans tell you how upset they are about Jude not returning, you may change your mind. One can only hope!

THE BODY KEEPER [2019] By Anne Frazier My Review Four Stars**** I finished the third installment of Frasier\’s trilogy featuring Detective Jude Fontaine the end of last month. I had read THE BODY COUNTER earlier in the month of May, and frankly was so riveted by the indelible character of Fontaine that I was both impatient and sad to read what was clearly the final chapter of her fascinating and heartbreaking story. Anne Frazier was a \”new-to-me\” author despite her success in a number of arenas. That said, she made a fan out of me with one book, namely THE BODY READER. There aren\’t sufficient superlatives to bestow upon the debut novel introducing the unforgettable fictional character of Detective Jude Fontaine. Frazier allows, no forces, the reader to experience the world through the eyes and impressions of the emotionally damaged psyche of the tortured and victimized Fontaine. Her prose is naked, raw, and unapologetic. I found myself mesmerized by the way that Jude viewed and experienced the people and the environment around her following her escape from hell. She became a fictional hero that I would always remember, or perhaps a character created with such emotional depth and sorrow that reading her story would stay with me always. THE BODY COUNTER continued Jude\’s journey on a long road toward normalcy in a world that had become alien and hostile to her. Frazier continued the story with allowing the reader a voyeur\’s view into the heart and soul of Fontaine. It was sad and shocking at times, but always raw and real. I had high expectations about the final installment entitled THE BODY KEEPER, at the same time I was already experiencing anticipatory grief that the riveting story of Fontaine\’s travels was coming to a some semblance of closure. That said, the \”final chapter\” did not overall disappoint. Frazier\’s sprawling yet complex story line went back to the very beginning of the evil that spawned Jude\’s capture and depraved captivity by a sadistic predator for years. The genesis of evil is inevitably the key to Jude\’s ultimate salvation. The surprising revelations that continue to yield knowledge of blood ties in the final analysis helps Jude on the unsteady bridge back to feeling and relating to the people who genuinely care about her. The book finds her partner Uriah in a vulnerable position with the health concerns that were partially revealed in the previous book. This vulnerability and the very uncertainty of Uriah\’s future presence in her life jolts her psyche into accepting that he is in fact important to her reality and that she very much cares about the outcome of the health challenges that face him. The author does a wonderful job crafting an intricately complex plot with an incredible chain of events that are ultimately believable in light of Fontaine\’s father\’s proclivities and her brother\’s complicity. It is a bloated spider\’s web of lies and deceptions with a chilling depth of evil that impacts generations in its wake. It might be a good time to mention that Frasier is astounding when she applies her talent to lifting the veil on a number of remorseless sociopaths that we encounter in the course of the story line. We see their behaviors but far more chilling is \”hearing\” the thoughts inside their heads, the depth of the darkness in their souls, the chilling narcissistic rage that fuels their violence. I\’ve said it before, and I\’ll say it again. Karin Slaughter isn\’t the only talented thriller writer out there that \”writes with a razor\”. This was an outstanding novel overall, and a worthy conclusion to the story of the jaded Jude Fontaine, both feet planted on the road to opening her heart, lowering her defenses of steel, and allowing the ice around her emotions to melt a little at a time as she embraces life again. That said, I just can\’t bring myself to award a rating of another 5-Stars on this one. I rarely read Customer Reviews, and if I do it is after I have read the book. However, I happened to spot a review that summed up just perfectly how I feel and why I am allotting 4-Stars. I was dumbstruck when Jude (armed, hyper vigilant, and already suspicious of her surroundings) was easily taken down and subsequently immobilized by a female sociopath who possessed no known fighting skills and was hobbling around with a healing fracture of her lower leg after a car crash. I can only speculate that Frasier had her own reasoning as to why that this occurred. I could hazard a guess, but No Spoilers (and I could be wrong anyway). Fact is, I didn\’t find it plausible and it didn\’t work for me.

BOOK 43 of 2019: THE BODY KEEPER by @annefrasier You know a book is good when you race through it but then youre sad its over. Thats exactly how I feel about THE BODY KEEPER, the 3rd book in the Jude Fontaine series. In this novel, Detective Jude Fontaine is working a case of a body found under the ice of a skating rink. It turns out that the body may be 20 years old. Meanwhile, a child is left in a blizzard at Judes apartment building. Jude works to figure out both cases, which may be linked, while dealing with her own personal issues. Jude Fontaine has become one of my favorite characters and Anne Frasier one of my favorite authors. This is definitely a series to read!

Not being a writer myself, it is difficult to put into words just how much I love this series, and I believe this book is the best. That says a lot in that the other two were hard acts to follow, and the three should be read in succession to get the full impact of this complex character who I have grown to love. I didn\’t think Anne could top her Dead series with Elise and David, but she did. Hoping that this is not the last we see of Jude!!

Galaxyaudiobook Member Benefit

- Able to comment

- List watched audiobooks

- List favorite audiobooks

- Bookmark will only available for Galaxyaudiobook member