Book review: Endgame by Sarah Barrie

Endgame by Sarah Barrie is the fourth in the series featuring Lexi Winter – victim turned prostitute / hacker / vigilante turned cop. I really love this series and Barrie has offered up consistently good books with strong vibrant characters and action-packed investigations. It’s interesting she’s not garnered more accolades for her work (and I enjoyed her earlier novels as well). This would be great on the screen and I’d love to see it optioned as it’s got everything one could possibly want in a TV series!

Lexi Winter is studying for her detective exams but her nemesis Vaughn is out there somewhere and her concentration is fractured. Just as she's wondering if her hypervigilance is tipping over into madness, Vaughn resurfaces and issues a challenge. Five people will be dead by the end of the month. If Lexi can identify and save the last one before the deadline, he'll turn himself in.

As Lexi's colleagues scramble to untangle what it all means, Lexi is implicated deeper and deeper into the murders. On top of this, she begins to see a strange figure everywhere she goes. Branded as suffering from PTSD, Lexi's credibility is in tatters with her colleagues, but Lexi knows it isn't her mind that is the problem. A wicked game is afoot, and Lexi is just a chess piece in play - and she suspects that check mate will mean her death. There is only one thing that Lexi can do - play along, wait for the chance to strike back, and bring about the endgame...

I’d not remembered that Lexi had taken in a teenage girl from her previous case and it has to be said that Cait is as much of a delight as Lexi. Prickly, cynical and quick to anger but generous-hearted with a strong sense of right/wrong.

The book opens with the death of a young male, a suicide but there are some around his motivation and some misdeeds that had taken place earlier, possibly also resulting in the suicide of a teenage girl. Witnesses are talking about seeing the ghost of a young woman who reportedly killed five men who raped and beat her to death (or more specifically, she led them to their deaths) years before.

But dwarfing that case (though there is ultimately a link) is the fact that convicted paedophile Damon Vaughn has returned and playing a public game of ‘catch me if you can’ with Lexie and her colleagues. Here Vaughn uses social media to try to claim that he’s innocent of the charges he was jailed 15 years for committing and we’re reminded of the power of falsehoods and misinformation shared publicly and left unchecked by the media and the public.

I’ve loved this whole series, particularly the second book, Retribution, giving it 4.5 stars and I enjoyed this as much, if not more. It offers so much more than the investigations as we come full circle in many ways to Lexi and the assumptions she’s made about herself and the life she expects she will live. Barrie throws in so much weighty content here, from boss and mentor Rachael’s fear for Lexi’s life, Lexi’s complicated relationship with colleague Finn, and then there’s Lexi confronting her past as old secrets are revealed, along with significant guilt as Vaughn comes after those she loves, blaming herself for taunting him.

There was a sense of finality here… of wrapping up and I think I saw something referencing this as the end of Lexi’s story but I have to confess I’d be devastated if that’s the case. I’ve loved this (dare I say?!) journey, or better… adventure Barrie’s taken her on as well as those around her… including we fortunate readers.

Endgame by Sarah Barrie will be published in Australia by HQ Fiction in late October 2024.

I received an electronic copy of this book from the publisher for review purposes. (PS. Little #firstworldwhinge that Harper Collins / HQ Fiction rarely send me print copies the crime fiction books I request but instead send me rural romance and the like…)