The Tunnels

The Tunnels by Michelle Gagnon
Book #1 in Kelly Jones
4 stars

Synopsis:
FBI agent, Kelly Jones and her partner, Roger Morrow are called in to investigate when the mutilated bodies of two female students are found in the abandoned tunnels beneath a prestigious college. The ritualistic nature of the killings and the fact that both victims are daughters of powerful men contribute to the need to discover and stop the killer before he strikes again.

Review:
Let me begin by saying that I adore serial killer stories, and I am always looking for ones that contribute to the genre and do not merely regurgitate traditional plot lines. Fortunately, this book falls into the former category. The plot is original and inventive with its roots in Norse show more mythology, and there is a strong build-up of tension and suspense with an interesting twist at the end. The characters are well developed, especially the female lead who has an interesting back story. There are a couple of minor shortcomings, such as the obvious red herrings and the final scenes, which are a little bit too reminiscent of the Silence of the Lambs. In sum, this an excellent debut novel and I am curious to read the next installment. show less

Michelle Gagnon has created an intelligent, confident character in Kelly Jones who grows more complex and more interesting as the story progresses. The members of her investigative team are also well drawn... particularly the character of Jake Riley who works for the father of one of the dead girls. The identity of the murderer is fairly obvious early into the story, but the reasoning behind the crimes when revealed at the end seems rather strained. If you can overlook that little flaw...which I found I could...it was a very good start to what I hope becomes a favorite series.

Book One in the mystery series starring FBI agent Kelly Jones.

A serial killer is targeting women on a New England college campus. The campus is crisscrossed by a series of tunnels that date back a century or more. Some students use them to avoid bad weather when traversing campus, but mostly they use them as make-out places. One girl gets lost in the darkness when her “friends” get ahead of her. The next day she’s found brutally murdered, and a second body is also found.

This is a brutal, graphic murder mystery. It involves ancient pagan religions, and one deranged person’s attempt to appease those gods with ritualistic sacrifices. But, of course, no one knows that at the outset.

Jones is a tough lady with some history on this show more campus, as well as personal trauma in her background which fuels her desire to find the perpetrator.

The pace is fast, the lead character is likeable, and the storyline held my attention, but I’m not sure I’d bother to read another in the series. I felt a bit as though the grotesque brutality and graphic descriptions were overkill. And I was disappointed that Gagnon resorted to the “big strong man” coming to Jones’ rescue, rather than letting this strong woman get the best of the killer on her own. show less

In the debut novel from this author, bodies of two female college students are discovered the tunnels beneath a prestigious American college and FBI Agent Kelly Jones is called in to lead the investigation into their murders. Due to the nature of the killings it seems likely that a serial killer is responsible. One of the dead students is the daughter of a wealthy man who employs ex-FBI Agent Jake Riley as his head of security and asks that Riley be allowed to assist in the investigation. Much to Jones’ annoyance her superiors say yes to this request and she and her partner Roger Morrow are saddled with Riley and his sometimes unorthodox behaviour.

Familiarity does, as they say, breed contempt and I have read so many serial killer show more themed books and watched so many serial killer themed TV shows that I wholeheartedly (and undoubtedly mistakenly) believe I could give a pretty accurate profile of your ‘average’ serial killer if called upon (though why I would ever be so called upon is a mystery). Because I’ve overdone crazed serial killers I do tend to stay away from them in my fiction these days but I had a reason for tracking down Michelle Gagnon’s work and so dove in.

The story is a good one with a few really unexpected twists and a nice build-up of tension. The way Jones and her team put the case together is generally believable and Gagnon manages to achieve a nice balance between explaining the insider jargon of the investigators to readers and not clunking up the story with dull details. I assume that’s not nearly as easy as it sounds because a lot of writers fail to do it. I found some of the side action, such as reading about the effect of the killings on the college’s new President, to be just as interesting as the main story and it added a real sense of authenticity that’s often missing when all the action involves only victims and investigators. I would have liked a less clichéd resolution though, as there were a couple of “oh no, you’re not going to use that device are you” moments which spoiled what was otherwise a good, solid story.

Kelly Jones is someone I could envisage in the role of an FBI agent which, again, is not always the case. She has some baggage which is slowly revealed over the course of the novel but not enough to make her dysfunctional, and at the end of the book I found myself wondering what she would do next (a question I can answer at my leisure as I have the second book in the series waiting in Mt. TBR). The rest of the characters, including Jake, were a bit under-developed to be truly engaging but there’s potential.

Perhaps one of the reasons I found this book so credible is that there is a fairly extensive tunnel system underneath my city and I spent quite a bit of time in them a few years ago. I was there for a rather dull work purpose rather than for hunting serial killer purposes but I did often ponder that they’d be the perfect setting for a murder or three. Anyway, I enjoyed this trip back into the world of evil serial killers more than I thought I would. It was creepy and odd enough that I knew it was fiction (I really don’t want to read about things that might have actually happened to real people) but realistic enough to make me pull the bed covers over my head (just in case).

My rating is actually 3.5 show less

The Tunnels is published by Mira Books (an imprint of Harlequin, the publisher who pumps out romance novels by the truck load), my experience with books published by Mira is they're usually quite lacklustre. No matter how exciting the blurb sounds, the actual content doesn't live up to the expectations set and you can often tell the author is attempting to expand from romance writing into other genres, usually poorly at that.

Thankfully, The Tunnels didn't come in at these rather low expectations, but rather was quite a good tale of a serial killer stalking students within the historic tunnels under a university. Add in some gory scenes a touch of Norse mythology with the FBI stumbling around seemingly in the dark you have the making of show more pretty decent story. Whilst there were some seemingly jarring parts to the writing such as the scenes changing mid-paragraph overall it was a decent crime thriller. Quite short at 238 pages, easily read in an evening, but nonetheless a decent story. show less

I picked this book up on a whim, and I'm so glad I did. This is a great read. I highly suggest this.

Under a prestigious college in New England, there are some tunnels. I'm sure lot of schools have them. The problem is that in these tunnels a serial killer lurks. He just wants special people to be his victims. After all, not just anyone can be a victim of his, only the elete. When bodies are found (carved up in a graphic way) Special Agent Kelly Jones is called in. She has a knack for catching serial killers, and this one is so clever, he's off the charts. He's killing for a reason, and it's up to Kelly and her partner to find the reason, and find the killer. There's more to the plot, but if I say to much more it will ruin it. Let's show more just say that Kelly Jones has some demons in her closet that start to come out.

This is such a great read. The characters are true to life and seem to jump right off the page. There are some fantastic plot twists and great cliffhanger at the end of each chapter. If you start this, I can promise you won't be sorry.

There is just one drawback from the book, you'll lose a lot of sleep because you'll be hooked to see what happnens next. I know I was. I can't wait to start the second book in the series.

Great book, great read! show less

This is an impressive debut novel by Gagnon. I was pulled in at the beginning and for the most part the rest of the book chugged along. In addition she seemed to meld a mystery and thriller really well. Some of the scenes that took place in the tunnels were as intense as a good horror movie, and thankfully without the movie cliches.

Gagnon takes her time introducing her main character, Agent Kelly Jones, giving just enough while also moving the mystery forward. In general all the characters were well drawn and just complicated enough to be interesting.

I'd recommend this book to all mystery lovers. It's not too gory and makes the reader ponder and think just the right amount. It's a solid book and a great first novel.