A review by madisonwfairbanks
The Survivors Club by Lisa Gardner

dark emotional tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

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 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.