The Fifth to Die

A Detective Porter Novel

By: J. D. Barker

Narrated by: James Alexander

Murder. It’s a family affair.

In the midst of one of the worst winters Chicago has seen in years, the body of missing teenager Ella Reynolds is discovered under the surface of a frozen lake.

She’s been missing for three weeks...the lake froze over three months ago.

Detective Sam Porter and his team are brought in to investigate, but it’s not long before another girl goes missing. The press believes the serial killer Anson Bishop has struck again, but Porter knows differently. The deaths are too different. There’s a new killer on the loose.

Porter, however, is distracted. He’s still haunted by Bishop and his victims, even after the FBI have removed him from the case. His only leads: a picture of a female prisoner and a note from Bishop: ‘Help me find my mother. I think it’s time she and I talked.’

As more girls go missing and Porter’s team race to stop the body count rising, Porter disappears to track down Bishop’s mother and discover that the only place scarier than the mind of a serial killer is the mind of the mother from which he came.

Perfect for fans of Helen Fields, Val McDermid and Jo Nesbo, this gripping and twisted thriller will have you wondering, how do you stop a killer when he’s been trained from birth?

©2018 J. D. Barker (P)2018 HarperCollins Publishers Limited

Critic reviews

"J.D. Barker is a one-of-a-kind writer and that’s a rare and special thing. Stephen King comes to mind and Lee Child, John Sanford. All one-of-a-kinds. Don’t miss anything J.D. writes." (James Patterson)

"Not since Hannibal Lecter had a friend for dinner has a serial killer been so skillfully rendered on the page." (Taylor Elmore, writer/producer of Justified and Limitless)

"Gritty, masterful suspense. A dark ride into the mind of a genius killer, and those tasked with stopping him for good. Impeccably written with Barker’s trademark wit and penchant for killer detail. Lee Child, you've met your match." (Tosca Lee, New York Times best-selling author)

Gripping story, very easy to listen

Gripping storyline; can’t wait to start on book #3. The book is an easy read and even more easy to listen too, I tend to switch between actual reading and audio book because the story was so captivating and I didn’t want to stop even when driving.
The audiobook was a little slower than actually reading by myself but the speed adjusting options at audible came in handy to solve this; overall great story and performance.

Cannot keep listening to narration!!

once again i am shocked by what the producers of some audio books put out as final product. did anyone actually LISTEN to this once it was completed?? the narration is so unbearable, I'm stopping the audio version and ordering the paperback because i love the story. the narration sounds like if you took the staccato, overly dramatic diction of captain Kirk and mixed in a robotic monotone with a weird, low-register, nasal fry. on top of that, the narrator's accent is bizarre and anoying ("air" is "are"). every character sounds clinically depressed and over everything. Absolutely awful.

Solid storyline sabotaged by narration

What should've been a riveting listen, turned into an experience similar to walking barefoot on Lego, due to the narrator's unusual inflection. Every.single.word. is narrated as if it is a 10 second promo for a thriller. While this style works for 10 second promos, it definitely does not for a 17hr + audio book. The narrator delivers dialogue perfectly, though, so I blame the director for a severe lapse in judgement. Increasing the speed to 1.25 helped slightly to ease the listening pain. Had I not already invested time and energy into the first book of the series, I would've abandoned the audio within the first chapter. I am deeply disappointed that Audible continues to sell this narration despite all the many many complaints about it. This is not up to standard and Audible should be ashamed for continuing to charge for sub-standard work.