Mystery & Suspense
From Edgar® Award-winning, New York Times bestselling author Max Allan Collins
Based On The CBS television show hailed as "The network's best new offering."—Wall Street Journal
Watched by nearly 18 million fans weekly
The bodies of three young girls are discovered in the woods of Bemidji, Minnesota, the result of barbiturate poisoning. Unable to identify the victims, the local police turn to the Behavioral Analysis Unit. Profiler David Rossi learns that the girls disappeared more than ten years ago from Georgia. Further investigation reveals that the perpetrators have been involved in a cycle of kidnapping and murder for close to twenty years—and are about to start again…
Read the first Chapter from Criminal Minds: Finishing School:
Jennifer Jareau studied the photos she'd just downloaded to her laptop.
"JJ" to her friends and colleagues, the long-haired blonde in her late twenties had been with the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Behavioral Analysis Unit for the last five years, and had seen photos far more gruesome than these. But something about these victims—mostly skeletons now because of decomposition—engaged her interest.
Obviously, the three victims had been interred in their shallow graves near Bemidji, Minnesota, for some time. Exhumed over the weekend, the three bodies displayed levels of decomposition indicating burials over the course of at least several months.
She checked her watch, then printed the pictures and loaded them into a file folder with her notes as well as other documents from the investigators in Minnesota. She'd been accumulating information almost since the moment Supervisory Special Agent David Rossi had phoned her to say a call would be coming from a Minnesota investigator named Fletcher Keegan, apparently an old acquaintance of Rossi's.
Her fellow agent's heads-up had come so late that Keegan had called while Jareau was still on the line with Rossi. She spoke at length with Keegan, who in turn put her in touch with Detective Lewis Garue, lead investigator.
Of course, at this point, with the autopsies not done, the crime was the illegal disposition of bodies—a misdemeanor. But everyone on the Minnesota end felt they had a serial killer, and, judging by the strands of blond hair clinging to the skulls of the three corpses, that seemed likely; but the BAU could not get involved in a misdemeanor.
Her team, already in the office, was waiting for a briefing on what their next case would be, but first Jareau wanted confirmation on the causes of death.
Jareau was just about to inform her boss, Special Agent in Charge Aaron Hotchner, that the briefing would have to wait until after lunch, when the phone rang.
The call was from the Beltrami County coroner. Jareau spent half an hour taking down all the information and incorporating it into her briefing materials.
She called Hotchner and brought her boss up to speed.
"Don't rush yourself," Hotchner said. "We can schedule the briefing for after lunch."
"That would probably be better," she admitted.
Better if for no other reason than Jareau could keep working through lunch, which today, like so many other days, would be at her desk. She had long since learned to eat without qualms while perusing the most grotesque write-ups and photographs of forensics evidence.
A PowerBar, a banana, and a container of yogurt from the break-room refrigerator kept her going as she prepared for the presentation. By the time she finished her lunch by downing a bottle of water, Jareau was ready.
When she entered the conference room, the others were already seated around the long, oval table. To the left, windows with venetian blinds let in November sunlight. A copier and fax machine on a sidebar shared the wall with the door. At the far end, a flatscreen monitor dominated.
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Read more...Read the first two books in the series:
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