So then she said...

Every second counts when you're about to die...

Time is running out for Bruce Patman. He has less than forty-eight hours to find out who poisoned him...and why. Forty-eight hours before the deadly toxin takes his life.

Everyone around Bruce has a secret. Everyone seems suspicious. Even Lila Fowler, the woman he loves.

Bruce is on a frantic search to discover who wants him dead. And the clock is ticking...

Somehow, it just isn't a re-readathon without some SVU, even though we don't always read one every year. This one fell right in my sweet spot: mid-canon, Bruce/Lila ship sailing freely, and everyone is in character. This book is definitely helped by only have 3 main characters (Bruce, Lila, and Jessica Wakefield at her best), so the POVs were limited and the plot was able to move at a fairly lightning pace.

( A tale of 3 manuscripts or: how pink cardstock saved Bruce's life )

I LOVED this book. It had the right trio of characters at the center, all of them in character despite the ridiculousness around them, and the pace is extremely lively. It's written like a true thriller, and has the beats of an actual thriller writer as the ghostie. Jessica is at her most extremely awesome here, both in wit (telling Bruce that if she was going to kill him, it would've been in high school) and action (her mad skillz driving Bruce's car, which even Bruce had to give her props for). Seriously, I **love** this Jessica and wished we got to see more of her! Lila even gets a few strikes in, having stomped on Gordon's foot when he attacked her hard enough to probably break his toes and leave him with a telltale limp. And my ship? OMG! Bruce even gives a canon shout-out when he talks about the plane crash that stranded them together and served as the beginning of their relationship. My heart was just melting! ♥

impy and I weren't sure if this would be a good book to close out our readathon with, so we decided to stick it in the middle in case it sucked. We needn't have worried - this was awesome!