Life Sentences — Alice Blanchard

Research scientist Daisy Hubbard has one driving purpose in life: to find a cure for the rare disease that killed her brother. A rising star in a prestigious Boston laboratory, Daisy is more comfortable with the mice who are the subjects of her endless rounds of experiments than with any human being outside the facility's walls. Still, her single-minded pursuit of scientific knowledge is just about to pay off: she is closing in on a therapeutic breakthrough when her sister Anna mysteriously vanishes from her Los Angeles apartment. Daisy must reluctantly tear herself from the security of her lab to track down her troubled sister.

The turbulent streets of L.A. are all the more disorienting after the quiet precision of Daisy's lab, and Daisy must turn for help to Jack Makowski, an enigmatic, hard-drinking LAPD detective with his own personal demons. Together, they follow a string of clues to a sinister and manipulative killer who claims to know where Anna Hubbard is. But how does he know so much about Daisy's scientific research? Can a single word of his be trusted?

When the killer's revelations lead to unexpected victims, Daisy's reliance on logic and predictability must end. And when Jack's unconventional crime-fighting techniques fall short, it is up to Daisy to convert her scientific knowledge, strength, and instincts into a successful defense against a killer who threatens to turn Daisy's hard-won research into a weapon deadlier than the disease it was meant to combat.