I was patiently waiting for The Invited or How to Sell a Haunted House to become available on Libby when I happened to notice something.
There was another book in C. M. Sutter’s FBI Jade Monroe series!
Well, that settled what I was reading next.
I’ve loved this series for quite a while, and Blood Bath certainly didn’t disappoint. In fact, I finished it in a day and a half!
If you’ve read any of my other C. M. Sutter book reviews, you already know how much I enjoy her writing. She has a way of creating characters that I genuinely look forward to spending time with, and Jade Monroe and Renz DeLeon are no exception.
This book had an interesting investigation, a killer who was frighteningly careful, and an ending I absolutely did not see coming.
And now I need the next book!
Blood Bath: Book Summary
The following book description is from Amazon:
Someone is hunting women.
Someone is feeding them to the lake.
When body parts of multiple women begin surfacing along Lake Michigan’s Wisconsin shoreline, FBI agents Jade Monroe and Renz DeLeon uncover a horrifying trail leading to missing prostitutes whose disappearances barely register on anyone’s radar.
One man caught on camera fits every piece of the profile, yet nothing ties him to the crimes. The agents have no witnesses. No DNA. No fingerprints. No proof. Just a growing certainty that they’re chasing the right monster.
But certainty won’t save the next woman who climbs into his car.
My Thoughts on Blood Bath
Warning: Major spoilers ahead! I’m discussing the killer, the unexpected revelations, and the ending. If you haven’t read the book yet, you might want to come back after you’ve finished it.
Another Great Jade Monroe Investigation
One of the reasons I keep coming back to C. M. Sutter’s books is that I love the way she writes her characters.
Jade and Renz are familiar by now, and I enjoy following their investigations. I know I’m going to get an interesting case, plenty of detective work, and characters I actually care about.
I’ve mentioned before that there are some similarities in the overall feel of these books and R. B. Schow’s FBI Sadie Gray series, which I also love. You can find my R. B. Schow reviews here.
But they’re different enough that I never feel like I’m reading the same story twice.
Both authors give me something I enjoy, just in different ways.
And Blood Bath was particularly intriguing because of the killer himself.
Getting Inside the Killer’s Mind
This wasn’t a book where we only followed the FBI agents as they tried to piece together what happened.
We actually got entire chapters from the killer’s perspective.
And good heavens, Alex was meticulous!
We saw how he planned his murders, how carefully he cleaned up afterward, and how much thought he put into disposing of the bodies and avoiding detection.
He wasn’t just committing these crimes and hoping nobody would catch him.
He was thinking through practically everything.
That made the investigation so interesting because, as readers, we knew what Jade and Renz were up against.
They were trying to find evidence, and we were watching Alex make absolutely certain there wouldn’t be any.
No fingerprints. No DNA. No witnesses.
How in the world were they going to prove anything?
I kept wondering what little mistake he’d eventually make. Surely, with enough investigating, Jade and Renz would find something.
And that’s what kept me reading.
They Were So Close!
As the investigation continued, I really felt like Jade and Renz were getting close.
They had their suspicions, and I kept thinking they just needed a little more time.
One more lead. One more piece of evidence. Something that would finally connect Alex to the murders.
And then they were taken off the case!
What?!
The local police department was going to handle it, and Jade and Renz were reassigned to a cold case.
I actually felt bad for them.
They’d put so much work into the investigation, and it seemed like they were right on the edge of figuring everything out.
But here’s the thing. I was also interested in the cold case.
Apparently, all the agents had worked on it at some point, and nobody had been able to solve it.
Maybe Jade would be the fresh set of eyes they needed.
I was curious to see where that investigation would go, even though I still wanted them to catch Alex.
But C. M. Sutter had other plans.
Wait. Another Case?
Just as the book was getting ready to end, Taft informed Jade and Renz that they were being pulled from the cold case, too.
Now they were going to investigate a missing judge.
Okay, interesting.
I figured that would be the setup for the next book, and we’d be moving on to an entirely new investigation.
Except we weren’t.
Not exactly.
Because what Jade and Renz didn’t know was that the missing judge and the murders they’d just been investigating were connected.
The same killer was responsible for both!
And then came the revelation that completely caught me off guard.
The Judge’s Wife?!
Throughout the book, Alex had been communicating with someone who was arranging the murders.
We knew he was a killer for hire, but we didn’t know who was paying him.
And then we found out.
THE JUDGE’S WIFE!
I did not suspect her. Not even a little!
Apparently, she’d had enough of her husband’s affairs with prostitutes and decided to have his favorite women murdered.
And Alex was the man she’d hired to do it.
Suddenly, everything clicked.
All those communications with the person arranging the murders, the women Alex was targeting, and now the missing judge.
It was all connected!
What made that revelation even better was that Jade and Renz had absolutely no idea.
Only we, the readers, knew.
They’d been pulled off a case they were so close to solving, reassigned to a cold case, and then sent to investigate a missing judge.
And they were about to walk right back into the investigation they’d just left!
I can only imagine the looks on their faces when they finally realize what’s happening.
And I cannot wait to read it.
What an Ending!
I went into Blood Bath fully expecting Jade and Renz to catch their killer.
That’s usually what I’m looking forward to in a crime thriller. I want to follow the investigation, watch the pieces come together, and finally see the person responsible get caught.
But that isn’t what happened here.
Instead, we ended with an unsolved investigation, an unexpected connection between two cases, and a revelation that completely changed how I looked at everything.
And you know what?
I loved it!
Sure, I wanted Jade and Renz to catch Alex. I still do.
But now I’m even more invested in what happens next.
We know something they don’t, and I’m dying to see how long it takes them to figure it out.
Will they recognize the connection right away? Will they realize they’ve been chasing the same person all along? And how on earth are they going to find the evidence to prove it?
Because Alex has already shown us just how good he is at covering his tracks.
This isn’t going to be an easy one to solve.
Final Thoughts
Blood Bath was another excellent addition to the FBI Jade Monroe series.
I loved the investigation, the chapters from Alex’s perspective, and the way C. M. Sutter showed us just how carefully he planned his crimes.
I especially enjoyed watching Jade and Renz work through a case where they seemed to know who was responsible but couldn’t find the evidence to prove it.
And that ending!
I genuinely didn’t expect the two investigations to connect, and the revelation about the judge’s wife caught me completely by surprise.
Finishing a book in a day and a half probably says plenty about how much I enjoyed it.
But what really tells you how I felt is that I immediately wanted the next one.
I need to know what happens when Jade and Renz discover they’re right back where they started, only now they have an entirely different piece of the puzzle.
C. M. Sutter, I’m ready for the next book!
If you enjoy FBI thrillers, detailed investigations, and killers who make the detectives work for every little piece of evidence, I definitely recommend checking out this series.
Just don’t expect everything to be wrapped up neatly by the final page!