The Survivors Club

I have never read a Lisa Gardner book before and the Survivor's Club was on my list as a highly recommended read. I normally don't listen to crime dramas; however, I really enjoyed the suspense in this fast-paced novel. The description of the rapes really brings home the fact of what an act of violence rape is (especially in this story) -- the author handled the subject matter with incredible understanding and empathy, yet getting her point across about the true nature of that hideous crime. The characters are well developed and it kept me listening raptly to all of the twists and turns that one loves in a good crime mystery. I plan on reading her other books now.

The Survivors Club by Lisa Gardner
Thriller. Police procedural. Trigger warnings of active rape.
Three women form the Survivors Club as victims of the same man that has sexually assaulted them. Each is struggling to recover, or survive in different ways, collectively grateful he’s been caught.
Outside the courthouse, just moments before his trial, Eddie Como is gunned down. The Survivors Club are the prime suspects. Detective Sergeant Roan Griffin is assigned the case and must question the women. Jillian Hayes is beautiful, successful and cool as ice. Griffin can see the pain behind the ice because he hides his own. Then another victim is brutally attacked and evidence points to the dead man. Now the police and Griffin have to question show more every fact and assumption they’ve made. The city is in a panic. The women of the Survivors Club question their own memories and their supposed safety. Someone is out there.

Electrifying and twisted.
The attacks in the beginning are brutally hard to read. And that makes it all the more terrifying when they continue after the suspect is dead. The emotional recovery of each woman is totally understandable. The bad guy is clever and manipulative. He’s terrifying.
Originally released in 2002. Just as impactful more than twenty years later. show less

I have not read books of many female authors thinking they are weak. Lisa Gardner shattered that perception.

The characters in this book have body and are three dimensional.

She reveals the realities of the rigors of rape. She enters the minds of both the male and female characters and returns, bloodied with the raw ruin rape leaves. Like a pulsing heart in her hands.

This is a recommended read.

Jillian Hayes, Carol Rosen and Meg Pesaturo belong to "The Survivors Club," a group of three women living in Providence, Rhode Island, who meet regularly after having been victimized by the same rapist. Eddie Como, known as the College Hill Rapist, is about to face trial. He has claimed innocence from day one but nobody seems to be expecting anything other than a guilty verdict since his DNA was found at the scenes of the attacks. When Como is killed on his way to the courthouse by an unknown assassin, it's hard to see too many people being upset. When the assassin is killed minutes later it leaves two murders that need to be investigated.

The author introduces us to Detective Sergeant Roan Griffin, a state police officer back at work a show more year after dealing with the death of his wife and the loss of control at a crime scene. He doesn't know the three members of the Survivor's Club but considers them prime suspects in the murder of Eddie and the assassin.

Shortly after Eddie is killed, another rape occurs and the doctors recover Eddie's DNA from victim. Jillian teams up with Roan to investigate how this could happen. Eddie is dead so how can he have raped and killed another woman? How can a dead man, who had been assassinated earlier, leave DNA at a crime scene?

This is not a new Lisa Gardner book. Somehow I managed to miss this one a few years ago and am glad I was able to pick it up now. I thought it was a very suspenseful story and the plot races along incorporating many unexpected twists. It's an outstanding crime thriller and if you are a fan of Lisa Gardner you will really enjoy this one. show less

A rapist left an indelible mark on three women's lives. All three women hated him and wanted him dead. When he is murdered on his way to trial the police must figure out which of the three women murdered him.

This story had a complicated plot that was interesting and a bit of a stretch but entertaining anyway. There was a lot about the suffering of the women who were attacked by the rapist but it was mostly believable and drew me in. A number of surprising things happened which made the police urgently work to figure out what was going on. This was a good thriller with a lot of suspense.

Jillian Hayes, Carol Rosen and Meg Pesaturo belong to "The Survivors Club," a group of three women living in Providence, Rhode Island, who meet regularly after having been victimized by the same rapist. Eddie Como, known as the College Hill Rapist, is about to face trial. He has claimed innocence from day one but nobody seems to be expecting anything other than a guilty verdict since his DNA was found at the scenes of the attacks. When Como is killed on his way to the courthouse by an unknown assassin, it's hard to see too many people being upset. When the assassin is killed minutes later it leaves two murders that need to be investigated.

The author introduces us to Detective Sergeant Roan Griffin, a state police officer back at work a show more year after dealing with the death of his wife and the loss of control at a crime scene. He doesn't know the three members of the Survivor's Club but considers them prime suspects in the murder of Eddie and the assassin.

Shortly after Eddie is killed, another rape occurs and the doctors recover Eddie's DNA from victim. Jillian teams up with Roan to investigate how this could happen. Eddie is dead so how can he have raped and killed another woman? How can a dead man, who had been assassinated earlier, leave DNA at a crime scene?

This is not a new Lisa Gardner book. Somehow I managed to miss this one a few years ago and am glad I was able to pick it up now. I thought it was a very suspenseful story and the plot races along incorporating many unexpected twists. It's an outstanding crime thriller and if you are a fan of Lisa Gardner you will really enjoy this one. show less

"The Survivors Club" consists of Jillian Hayes, Meg Pesaturo, Carol Rosen--a "business woman, a college coed and an upper-crust wife." They all survived the College Hill rapist and banned together to put pressure on the police that led to the arrest of Eddie Como. On the day his trial was to begin, a sniper guns him down in front of the courthouse. What happens right afterwards to the assassin in the first pages is the first twist of the book, and hooked me in. The primary investigator is Roan Griffin of the Rhode Island State police. He too in his way is a survivor. The day of the killing is his first day back after he snapped under the pressure of the death of his wife and the investigation of a child killer.

There were several things show more about this book I liked, despite its flaws. First, I liked how the flashbacks to the attacks on the woman manages to describe rape in a way that while somewhat graphic, isn't titillating or eroticized (although I could have done without the cheesy italics). I liked the way the book emphasized instead the terror and physical brutality of the attacks, and the continuing trauma the women experience. In other words, this is poles away from say James Patterson's Kiss the Girls in the way it handles the subject. And I did like how it depicted the close bond between the women, and how it helps them find a way to survive, and find a way they can someday thrive. The last one hundred pages is as suspenseful and nail-biting as anyone could ask.

Without doubt this is the quintessential trashy thriller. I mean, man, Meg has total amnesia? Really? And we get that eye-rolling super-villain with the cunning high-concept plan, and the way Griffin is described is at times a bit too romance novel to my taste. Also, dude, despite what the book claims, identical twins do have identical DNA. They are, essentially, clones. But this was decently written even if by no means distinguished in style, with likable characters, and kept me turning the pages, interested to the end. Not many popular thrillers can manage even that. So, good airplane reading material can be had here. show less