Authentic and timely, this legal thriller hits all the marks.

Emily Shapiro is poised to have the time of her life. A college freshman at Tower University, she's about to attend her first frat party. The night does not go as expected and Emily is sexually assaulted by Dylan Brooks, the son of a powerful Michigan politician. Reeling and traumatized, Emily fights back by filing a complaint but is frustrated in her attempts to get justice -- even her own father, the president of the university, seems to care more about the college than he does her well-being. Then Emily goes missing. She was last seen outside a bar running down a street with Dylan following her. Anna Curtis, a federal prosecutor, gets involved in the case.

This book covers everything from campus rape to Title IX and the real life issues of power dynamics, the #metoo crusade, and good old boy culture. Written by a former sex crimes prosecutor, this powerful story rings true as it attempts to examine the emotional dynamics that surround the issue of sexual assault.

I think this is the last in the Anna Curtis series and, though I've searched, I've not found any more recent books written by this compelling author. I really enjoyed the 3 installments that I read as I love legal thrillers. I liked the main characters and the details. I listened to this on audio intermittently while also reading print -- the narrator got on my nerves with her voice many times, especially when she was changing it to do other characters. The worst was when she was trying to talk like a man. Anyway, I did enjoy the plot and recommend it.

Thank you to NetGalley and Touchstone for the e-book ARC to read, review, and recommend. ( )

The Last Good Girl by Allison Leotta

Allison Leotta has received high praise and critical notice for her four previous Anna Curtis novels. With The Last Good Girl, Leotta continues to shine, examining a complex social and legal issue with compelling storytelling.

In The Last Good Girl, Leotta examines campus rape, at Tower University, an esteemed university near Detroit, Michigan.

Emily Shapiro, a freshman student at Tower, disappears after leaving a bar near campus. Dylan Highsmith, president of the Beta Psi fraternity chapter, was the last person seen with Emily. Emily had accused Dylan approximately six months earlier of drugging and raping her at a campus party. However, Dylan’s wealthy and powerful family had used their resources to blunt any hope that Emily had of receiving the justice she sought.

Anna, normally a Federal prosecutor operating out of Washington, D.C., is in Michigan, having helped her sister, Jody, out of a legal issue, and finding a new love interest, Cooper Bolden.
Anna is drafted by her boss, her prior love interest, as a special prosecutor to oversee the Shapiro investigation with the FBI as a hate crime. Beta Psi has a reputation on campus as “the rape factory”, and with Highsmith as their leader, it’s no surprise when the investigation leads Anna to their door.
Leotta’s experience as a federal prosecutor is apparent. She unfolds her story, laying out the environment ripe for campus rape and the complexities of prosecuting cases. Late reporting, reluctant witnesses, rampant alcohol usage, and rape shaming make cases hard to make and harder to prosecute. When campus administrators are determined to impede progress, it makes it nearly impossible to succeed.

But Leotta’s story is hardly a recitation of prosecutorial potholes. She writes a tight, personal story of an Anna dealing with her life and her work in a direct uncomplicated manner removed from melodrama. Anna is a sympathetic character with a backbone of steel and one you want to root for.

The investigation’s procedural elements are well-presented, tightly structured, allowing for some surprise elements that fit nicely with the facts and leading to a satisfying resolution. The Last Good Girl is a solid story, nicely told.
( )

This was an okay story, but I found myself wishing it would hurry along and finish. This is the fifth book in a series and I had not read any of the previous books, but I don't feel like that was an issue. The backstory is presented briefly enough so you feel like you have an understanding of any important details from earlier books. ( )

This kept me turning the pages without many breaks as Gone Girl did. I started the series with the book and will have to read the previous ones. ( )

5+++ STARS! - My FAVORITE for 2016 to date!
This is by FAR my favorite book of 2016 so far! I just LOVED reading this book! There were a variety of reasons I loved this book so much, but the most outstanding one is this author's writing! This book read so well, you would start reading and the next thing you knew 50 pages just flew by! This author kept you glued to the pages in this book! Anything could have happened around you while you were reading this book and you wouldn't have even known it! She described things extremely well, the characters interacted very well and it was easy to know who was talking, whom they were talking to, and when a new character joined in or the scene changed. Overall, from start to finish this author never disappoints us as we are reading this book that is so simple yet at the same time very complex and a very detailed and complicated story, I call this 'reading through butter', meaning it reads so smoothly and with such ease!
This is Book Five of the Anna Curtis Series, (she works at the FBI and works whatever cases are given her), but this being Book Five means 'nothing'. This is a "stand-alone" book well worth your time and effort to read! I will be collecting her other four novels and I very much look forward to reading them and all her future books! Anna has a love interest, and she just made a huge decision, so I really want to learn more about that!
So what happens? This book is about rape that happens on college campuses, and in this case, it happens at a Michigan university, right where a particular student lives, a woman named Emily Shapiro. Emily actually grew up at this university because her father is the President of it. Amazing, huh! We learn some pretty shocking statistics in this book about rape, and other shocking information about fraternities, too. I always knew college fraternities do get a little crazy, but not quite like the one in this book, but then again I never did go away to school. This is downright scary to think of some of these things are going on at our colleges. We have seen movies show us what some college fraternities focus on, and that is strictly on and about women, and we are not made to look very respectful, and that is how women are treated and demonstrated by a certain fraternity in this book. It's quite shocking.
This book takes place at The Tower University in Detroit, Michigan. This campus has a clock tower which has turned into a special gathering place for the students, and a landmark on and for this campus (a lot of campuses have this.) Yes! Our good ‘ole state of Michigan does have a college in Detroit called Wayne State University, and yes, they also have a clock tower too, called 'Old Main', built in 1894! (There are so many similarities between this book's universities (colleges) and three others here in Michigan I thought it was pretty neat since I live here and know what and where the colleges are! For a college to have a clock like this is considered a status symbol. This author graduated from Michigan State University, and they have a clock tower on it's campus, too, built in 1928 and is referred to as the Beaumont Tower! The name Beaumont here is HUGE in our state, or at least in the suburbs of Detroit. It is a huge hospital system and more. It is SO large it's difficult to find whatever it is we need, and I say this from experience. It's amazing to me how colleges are so intertwined with other businesses, etc., in the states they are located in. Since there are so many similarities between the colleges here in Michigan, I thought this was pretty neat since this book takes place here where I live, and I know what colleges are here and where they are located, and I am somewhat familiar with the city of Detroit, etc.! When you read about a book based in and around the area you live in it is really neat!
And yes! There truly “ARE” farms in the middle of Detroit! They are seasonal, of course, due to our weather, and some of them can be quite large. Since the city of Detroit has fallen by the wayside, and is no longer the ‘auto capital of the world' as it was once known as the 'Motorcity’, people in Detroit have had no choice but to reinvent Detroit all on their own. Homes still get burned down to the ground left and right, and usually it's always arson when that happens, and is truly pathetic because those old homes were more than beautiful! The art in the woodwork and the stained glass windows alone! The care people used to put into their AMAZING homes! If only people had kept them up instead of letting them go and then they turn into blight in the city perfectly waiting for someone to come along and ignite them - UGH! You just are not and/or were not safe. Jobs still are still scarce, so people started claiming the land on their blocks (yes, sometimes and most of the time their house is the ONLY house on their entire city block when prior to that the houses were almost one on top of the other) and they are reinventing their blocks, their jobs, and turning their houses into farms! Yes! When you read that, it IS happening like that and the author is NOT stretching to making this up, nor is this some type of Apocalyptic thing!
Why am I talking about the community in Detroit? They ALL come together and help look for Emily Shapiro after she disappears. It's amazing! At this point, the only thing to look for is her dead body. There would be no way for her to be able to remain alive with the weather elements the way they were at the time. No one has heard from her, no one has seen her, and it's been months. She's gone. Here's what happens.
As I said above, this book is about women who go off to college and unfortunately are raped. Their risk of rape is extremely high especially in the first few weeks of school starting. This is SO sad! It's wrong and needs to be stopped, and it's books like THESE that bring out the truth that will do it! Koodles to this author for writing about this in this book bringing it to the attention of everyone who will end up reading it, most likely millions upon millions of people who will also feel like I do and want this stopped and there WILL BE ACTION TAKEN TO STOP THIS when in the past it was looked away from and more! You'll learn more about that in the book. This NEW action will result in NO ONE being able to keep rape a HUSH-HUSH SECRET ANY LONGER and this WILL be taken extremely seriously from now on!
Emily Shapiro attended her first college party the very first night she moved into her dorm. She got ready with her other two suite roommates and they were off to party at a frat house! Emily ended up with a guy named Dylan and she is raped. Emily was not flirting with this guy, she just found herself with him. How? As she lay underneath of him and was being raped, she felt drugged as she could not stay awake, and she kept falling asleep, but why she was being raped? How? What was happening to her? She was aware of what was happening, but she felt helpless to fight him back. When she woke up the next morning, she definitely knew what happened, it was not a dream.
A few months later, she fights for her rights after being raped by this guy, even if it did take her a few months to do so, but he keeps getting off free? Why? After a very short while, Emily disappears. She doesn't just go missing and is found at a friends house, she is completely gone for months and months and months with ZERO clues as to where she could possibly be. Is she dead? The FBI gets called in. No police department, including college security likes when this happens. The FBI takes over this investigation, in particular, Anna. Anna is from Michigan, too, so this is nice in that she gets to stay with her family while she is working this case. The problematic part for Anna is that her former fiance' is also HERE in Michigan, and he is HOT! His name is Cooper. One night Anna caught herself thinking how good it feels to be back home (with Cooper). Whoa! Stop! She cannot be thinking like this because she is not going to marry Cooper. Oh, problems.
Now the last time anyone ends up seeing Emily is getting longer and longer since the last time. It is seriously time to start searching for her and NOW! Thankfully, due to traffic cameras and some cameras at a few people's houses, including recordings Emily made herself for homework for her one Professors. Emily had to post her videos on a special server called Blue Tube and she was able to keep them set as "private" until others found them and someone took the videos down at that point. Anna was able to see Emily and also Dylan on camera chasing her down the street past anything where she might have found safety at until they get to the last place anyone wants to go or end up at, and that is “The Pit”. It happens to be an area at the college where construction has been going on for quite a while now. It’s more off to the side of the college where accidents have happened before. They do find some of her personal items in The Pit, but they don’t find her or her body in there. At this point, all that's left to try to use is DNA matching. This is GREAT! Maybe she still has a chance? Everyone IS HOPING she has that chance, but they can’t find her no matter what! The FBI does now know for a fact Emily was chased into The Pit by Dylan as it's on tape. They do get a search warrant and now they have one LIVID man at the frat house and college. More detective work goes on and more discovery is made, and some things will completely catch you by surprise!
All in all, yes, the subject matter in this book was dark, edgy, and grimy, but you KNEW that it had to be like this so that eventually ALL of this bad and evil secret keeping done intentionally by the fraternity houses will stop! Especially with the FBI on this trail, you KNOW justice will prevail! We just don't how or when, who would get hurt, if Emily is alive or not, and on and on with the questions.
This book was one heck of a suspenseful one! Again, this author is VERY talented, and it made reading this book an outstanding experience despite the subject matter. I LOVE books like these where the author has you so hooked into their books and you end up reading one like this in ONE DAY! (300 pages which normally doesn't happen that fast for myself!) This book is just SO good, I could NOT put it down! My nose was buried! So . . . there is so much more information you will learn from this book, hold on for the ride!
I have to admit I have seen this same 'that doesn't happen here' thing that is in this book about rape at colleges/universities on TV news reports, and in hour long documentaries, too. It's about Universities don’t want ONE WORD uttered that 'THEIR' college was a part of or had some type of problem with the act of "rape". I never knew it was because they were worried about the numbers game! The number of students who want to enroll versus the number who drastically don't want a thing to do with a college any longer. It makes a HUGE difference! Plus, these shows I saw did not come out with the complete truth like this book does. It was so wrong to try to keep this so hush-hush! This is a book about to change all of that. MAKE SURE TO SHARE THIS BOOK WITH FRIENDS AND FAMILY! THIS INFORMATION NEEDS TO BE SPREAD AROUND! YOU KEEP YOUR DAUGHTERS SAFE THE MORE YOU BRING THIS TO THE PUBLIC'S EYES, or else there is more, just like in this book! No, it's NOT OVER YET! Enjoy!
I received this book for FREE from the Publisher, Touchstone, A CBS Company, (and I thank them very much!) in exchange that I read then write a review about this book/what I read. "Free" means I was provided with ZERO MONIES to do so, but to just enjoy the sheer pleasure of reading this book and then writing an honest review about what I thought about this book, regardless if my opinion is positive or negative. I am disclosing this information in accordance with the law set here: http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_03/16cfr255_03.html The Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255, 16 CFR 255, Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising Federal Acquisition Regulation. ( )