I LOVE Wendy Walker so the minute I saw this one I had to have it! Stunning cover too! This one started out pretty strong for me but lost me somewhere in the middle. I'm giving it a 3.5 star rounding up to a 4 because I still enjoyed the story and wonder if it might just have been my mood. I always love her twists and little aha moments. I will for sure read more by her!

Elise Sutton has always loved putting together the puzzle of a cold case. When she stops to grab new bath towels for her daughters and ends up at the scene of a shooting however, her training kicks in and she must take the life of the shooter in order to save the man his gun faces. With the guilt she feels, she must find the man she saved to know she did the right thing, even though everyone is calling her a hero.

Whew. There were so many times during this book I didn’t know who was really the one “in charge” of the situation. Between Elise and Wade constantly trying to outsmart the other, it was hard to keep track of who was actually tricking whom. I was a bit confused by the second storyline at the start, but it does make sense in the end. This one kept me guessing until he end which is what I always want in a thriller!

“What remains inside of us is uncertain. Unknown. Unfamiliar. Unruly.”

Detective Elise Sutton is in a department store buying pink towels for her young daughters when she finds herself face to face with an active shooter. Her instincts and training kick in, and she takes a shot at the man with the gun, instantly killing him. Miraculously, no one else is injured and she saves everyone in the department store. But is Elise really a hero?

In the aftermath of the shooting, Elise is traumatized by her actions. Did she have to take that shot? Could the shooter’s death have been prevented? Did she really save the tall man who appeared to be in danger? Elise must find the answers to these questions in order to cope with the trauma of the shooting,

When a crime scene is found in a place called The Kill Room, evidence points to Detective Elise Sutton. Who was murdered in The Kill Room and what does Elise know about it?

In this fast-paced thriller, Wendy Walker tackles gun control, a current widespread issue that is affecting Americans. However, she does this without any political partisanship. Rather, she focuses on the origin of the gun, how it got into the wrong hands, and the mental health of its holder. She exposes the effect that a shooting has on the most unlikely victim, the trained professional who took him down. Mental health is considered in detail, while Elise goes rogue in order to solve her own case and clear her conscience. Two timelines are explored, eventually merging to complete the intentional plot holes.

Walker is a skilled writer, whose thrillers always keep me on the edge of my seat. I applaud her for tackling a difficult subject matter that needs more attention. I was there for the ride, but felt somewhat let down by the predictable ending. Do not expect a twisty read, as this book follows a different trajectory. Walker is on auto-request for me, so I didn’t read the synopsis prior to downloading. Maybe I should have been more careful. It is filled with triggers, so please check out the warnings before reading.

Trigger warnings: public shooting, assault, PTSD

3.5/5 stars rounded up

Expected publication date: 6/13/23

Thank you to NetGalley and Blackstone publishing for theARC of What Remains in exchange for an honest review.

Wow, what a cat and mouse chase!!!! This book hooked me from page one and never gave up it’s grip! I loved how there everything weaved together and the results were so suspenseful! Never is a million year would I have seen that ending coming!!!!

Wendy Walker has solidified the fact that she is a auto-read author for me! I highly recommend that you add this book to your TBR and read this book but you are in for a wild ride!

***Many thanks to @thrillerbookloverspromotions and Wendy Walker for the copy in turn for my honest review.

My review will be posted on Instagram (thriller_book_sisters) on 6/9/23.

What Remains is an intense cat and mouse game that will keep you glued to the pages from beginning to end. Wendy Walker dove right in with a department store shooting that lead to a death and an investigator trying to put herself back together after taking the life of a suspect, but questioning herself if it was the correct thing to do.

Elise and her partner Rowan are cold case detectives. They dive deep into the unsolvable cases and Elise is fantastic at her job. But one day her and her partner stop by the department store and she is the one inside when a man begins shooting a gun at innocent people. She makes a decision that will ultimately change her life forever, but leave her feeling guilty. She saved people, but took the life of another. When she takes a leave of absence, one of the survivors reaches out and has some ulterior motives and puts Elise and her loved ones in danger. What will Elise do? Did she make the right decision that day?

I love Wendy Walker and her exciting, compelling, page turning suspense thrillers. She has stories that keep me glued to the pages and staying up way past my bedtime. What Remains grabbed me from the beginning and had me rooting for Elise and her partner. I was confused when Elise began to go out on her own, but man was this story exciting and full of questionable actions and characters. I enjoyed how the two "stories" for the plot all came together in the end. It really showed how messed up our system is.

**Recommend, but also warn of the public shooting that is the premise of this book. It's a very prevalent subject matter in our lives right now and reading about it doesn't always hit the right note for every reader.

I am a fan of Wendy Walker! This story focuses on Detective Elise Sutton, working as a cold case investigator. This police procedural started off very strong, with a shooting at a store at which Sutton was shopping. This is a good and compelling story, and sympathetically explored the issue of past trauma.

3.5 ⭐️ Local detective Elise Sutton is a town hero after a trip to a department store led her to saving a man’s life while ending another. Ridden with guilt and unable to return to work, she finds herself connecting with the man who’s life she saved. The only problem is he is not who he says he is and now Elise finds herself in danger.

Wendy Walker is definitely an entertaining writer, and I always applaud her unique and fast-paced storylines. This definitely had the gripping moments I look for in thrillers, but there were also some details that just annoyed me (do not want to give spoilers). Also, while the story was primarily told from Elise’s perspective, there were chapters told from the POV of “The Kill Room.” Personally, I did not think these chapters added any additional information or suspense to the story, just confusion, and the story could have been told without them! The ending, however, was great, detailed and left me with no questions!


Read if you like:
-Police procedurals and cold case detectives
-Cat/mouse thrillers
-Lots of action
-How to Get Away with Murder (TV show)

Thank you Blackstone for the ARC! Pub date 6/13

I was interested in the story but found the storytelling a little hard to follow. It dragged on for the first half but eventually picked up a little. Overall, I would not recommend this book to a friend.

One minute Elise is in a store purchasing towels for her daughters and the next minute, there is a situation where she ends up killing someone to save another customer in the store. But this person who is saved turns out to be mysterious with a fake identity, but the question is what is he hiding and why is he even hiding? This evil perpetrator becomes a stalker and his evil strategies unnerve Elise and her family and now she has to think three steps ahead to protect her family. He creates messy situations within her family and colleagues causing more harm than she anticipated. It becomes a game of cat and mouse from then and we get to watch who gets the better of them. There are two plots running simultaneously and it takes a while to start connecting them. The second half was slow and the plot became extremely convoluted which didn't help much. But the intrigue was to know the motives for the whole situation.

Cold case detective Elise Sutton is shopping for towels for her daughters at a big box store when gunfire breaks out. She comes upon the shooter who has a victim in sight. To save his life, she must kill the shooter and her life is forever changed. She has to cope with guilt, anxiety, and the mysterious and scary man whose life she saved. She also finds that her online courses where she teaches lessons learned from past crimes comes back to haunt her. An alternate (but perhaps related!) storyline involves the discovery of a burned body in a hunting cabin.

A psychological thriller with an intriguing plot, I thought some of the mental deliberations tedious and frequently found myself skimming the text. A few of the actions and behaviors strained credulity a bit. Yet, I found the book to be a satisfying, enjoyable read.

Trigger warning: stalking behavior.

Thanks to #netgalley and #blackstonepublishing for the arc

After an off-duty police officer is forced to make a terrible choice . . . a split-second decision to end one life to save many, she then tumbles into a mire of confusion and self-doubt . . .

An evil perpetrator takes advantage of her in a moment of extreme vulnerability and crosses a forbidden line into her personal life. An elaborate cat-and-mouse pursuit ensues between seasoned officer, Elise Sutton and a diabolical man who engages in a dangerous battle of shadow and intellect.

To me, certain details, and especially the title had layered meaning . . . I found the phrase, What Remains, to be a very clever choice by the author. In some aspects of the story I wish she would’ve dug in quite a bit deeper than she did. I recommend this book to anyone who is a fan of murder mysteries and police procedurals.

I'd like to thank NetGalley for an advanced copy of What Remains for my unbiased evaluation. 3.5 stars

I realize this genre often veers into the depressing, but I found this one almost oppressively depressing all the way through. Even the happy ending didn't feel all that happy.

*Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing an e-galley in exchange for an honest review.

A fun unexpectedly twisty crime thriller!

Detective Elise Sutton is used to solving cold cases, but when she gets caught up in a department store shooting, her training kicks in and she takes out the bad guy. Or does she?

With things more complicated than they appear, her crime solving strategies slowly being used against her and an unknown stalker now coming after the people Elise cares about most, she must start thinking three steps ahead.

This is the first book I've read by Wendy Walker, and I'll be looking out for more in the future!

Thank you to NetGalley and Blackstone Publishing for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

What Remains by Wendy Walker was a great crime thriller. This story held my attention from the first page till the last, it was so well written. I have read all of this author’s books and I believe this is my favorite. I highly recommend. Thanks Netgalley for the arc.

A young man with a gun walks into a department store and begins shooting. Detective Elise Sutton, a cold case detective, buying towels for her daughters, hears the shots and witnesses the shooter aiming his weapon at a tall man and is compelled to take him down. With several eyewitness accounts corroborating Elise’s role in saving the lives of those present in the store on that day, the police have no doubts that Elise’s actions were justified. Her heroic act earns her accolades and recognition but Elise is consumed by guilt for taking the life of a young man. Traumatized she hopes that the testimony man whose life she saved will help her justify her actions to herself. But he seems to have disappeared without giving testimony. But when Elise finally meets the man, Wade Austin, the meeting does not end as Elise would have expected. The man in question becomes obsessed with Elise, following her every movement, threatening her safety as well as that of her family, leaving Elise with no option but to conduct her own investigation into this man, separate from her that being conducted by her department since she knows that Wade is not going to back down unless she beat him at his own game.

The narrative is well-structured and consistently paced. The story is shared from dual perspectives in alternating chapters, which works well in building up the tension. Complex characters, an intriguing premise and unpredictable twists and turns make for a riveting read. The character development was superb – both for Elise and Wade as well as the other supporting characters. I did feel, however, that the drama in Elise’s personal life was an unnecessary plot point, but luckily that did not detract from the overall reading experience. Overall, I found What Remains by Wendy Walker an intense read that grabbed me from the very first page. This is my first Wendy Walker novel and I look forward to reading more of her work.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Blackstone Publishing for the digital review copy of this gripping novel. All opinions expressed in this review are my own. This book is due to be released on June 13, 2023.

I’m so torn on this one. Did I like it or didn’t I? I definitely liked the mystery and trying to figure out how things tied together. I hated how the main character made such dumb decisions though. Overall I’d say an ok read and worth picking up.

This is my first book by Wendy Walker. Her writing style made me feel like I was part of the action. I really liked the first half of the book but then it started to fall apart for me. Detective Elise makes some questionable decisions even though she's an experienced detective. She is being stalked and doesn't inform her partner for like half the book. There's also long sections about her husband's affair and somehow she is supposed to be guilty because she "ruined" the lover's life. They had an affair and are adults. There's such a thing called consequences. It didn't ultimately have anything to do with the story. Why was I forced to read about this? The husband had zero personality and I didn't care about him or his feelings. The biggest unbelievable part was the stalker walked into her house through the front door while the police were watching her house. How?? The ending was good but there were so many moments where I was scratching my head.

First off, thank you to NetGalley and Blackstone Publishing for my eARC of this book and I am voluntarily leaving my review!

Alrighty, so for “What Remains” by Wendy Walker, I’m giving 5 stars. I really enjoyed this super fast-paced, cat and mouse psychological thriller. This one definitely made you want to keep turning the pages to see what was going to happen next. Detective Elise Sutton saved someone’s life, but now he’s never going to let her go. She discovers the man isn’t who he says he is and he soon becomes a big threat to her and all the people she loves most. Like I said this one definitely had me hooked and I would definitely recommend checking this book out when it’s released in June!

Although this author can be a bit hit or miss for me, I really enjoyed this one and didn’t find it too slow paced for a speed reader like myself. Great plot points and kept my attention during the duration

I'm a big fan of Wendy Walker's books. I've read most, if not all of them, and was really looking forward to What Remains. But this one was just weird.

Detective Elise Sutton works cold cases. She's a cop with a great partner, she's got a seemingly solid marriage, and two adorable daughters. She's shopping one day and a man enters with a gun and starts shooting. So she kills him and in the process, saves the lives of everyone in the shop. One of the men she saves is hard to find, until one day when she sees him out and about and then follows him only to realize that's he's super creepy and not at all who he says he is.

Slowly, Elise and the mystery man play a tense game of cat and mouse as he hunts her and she hunts him. What I liked was how tense the story was. What I disliked was the idea that a cop would hide so much from a trusted partner and/or colleagues.

Elise's story is juxtaposed with an investigation throughout the book, and they tie together at the end, but it took a while to get there. I understand why it's in the book, but it takes a while for it to make sense.

Overall, good book. It wasn't Walker's best, but it's certainly a good, tense ride.