Very compelling tale here - I went through this one pretty quickly & enjoyed the storyline & character development. Thanks to netgalley for the opportunity!

I received an advanced copy of this book through Netgalley. This book had me from the very beginning. I love that it kept me on the edge of my seat the whole time. I would highly recommend this book to my fellow readers. Thank you for the chance to review this book!!!!

5 Stars/ Review on Goodreads and Amazon.

It amazes me how Brian Freeman is able to keep the Jonathan Stride series fresh and engrossing after 9 books, but he does. Even after 9 books, my 5 star reviews for this author are "no brainers".

His method on this book...A CROSSOVER! Jonathan Stride (or Maggie) meet Cab Bolton!

This book flowed fast as we learn more about the Strides and a mystery fresh out of Hollywood brought to the shores of Minnesota with fingertips with tentacles in Florida. That to me is what made this book a winner.

As is my standard piece of advice...Jonathon Stride is a VERY character driven series with complex characters. Read the books in order otherwise critical pieces/nuances of the characters will be lost. Trust me, but you'll find it is a treat. This is my number one series I recommend.

While you're at it...not that this is necessary...check out Brian's Cab Bolton series. While not as necessary as Jonathan Stride, Cab is still a treat.

Reviewed for author/publisher via Netgalley.

I went into this book completely blind because it had been a while since I read the synopsis. This is how I like to read majority of my suspense and thriller books. I want to be completely shocked and in awe when I read what happens.

This book continually had me guessing at every single turn and I was completely blind to ho the end turned out. This was definitely a book that I couldn't put down and I carried with me everywhere just in case I got a few minutes to read.

Jonathan Stride is one badass guy who is a Lieutenant in Duluth Michigan. He is a seasoned cop who married another cop Serena a few years previous. They both live with Cat who is a teenager and has had a not so great past. She is a mother who chose to have an open adoption with her sons adoptive parents. She wanted to make sure that she stayed active in his life so that he knows she loves him, even though it was a tough decision.

Cat still has that impulsive side to her, but only when it is needed. She has changed so much since she came to live with Stride and Serena. Although at times she still doubts what she deserves, because of her past. But she is such a huge part in this book and I absolutely loved getting to know Cat.

Stride is one of those tough guy cops who doesn't want to hurt anyone more than he absolutely has to. He doesn't want more destruction than necessary, but when its time he is the man to get the job done. He couldn't get the job does as efficiently without his wife Serena.

Serena is a woman who has had her career and loves it but depends on her husband and Cat to be the people she cant turn to and spend the most time with. Serena has a huge heart, but she is more than willing to close that when it comes to someone hurting her family or her.

Stride worked on a case years go about a TV reporter Art, who was convicted of torturing and murdering young women and putting them in a box to die. That was 11 years ago, even though time has passed he still remembers everything like it was yesterday. That time also included another man who was accused of kidnapping a child from the zoo, and would later commit suicide because of the fallout from the allegations.

The time has come years later that Art's son Chris wants to make a movie of what happened those years ago. The Caged Woman has been cast and is a go, so the whole crew comes to Duluth to film the movie. With such a big movie on a budget of $10 MILLION also brings in big talent.

Dean Casperson is one of the biggest movie stars and he has been slated to play Stride. But Stride and Serena can feel something is off with him. But they cant put their fingers on what it is. With such celebrity and for so long come the loyalty from many who refuse to say anything against because of the repercussions.

With all of these elements and people there is bound to be some mischief and something serious happen. And boy does it! I'm not going to go any further just because this will give away too much and I don't want to do that to you!

I loved everything about this book especially the suspense that Brian wove into every part of the plot. This book was so full of surprises and turns and I LOVED EVERY MINUTE!!!

5 star thriller ! Alter Ego by Brian Freeman is the 9th entry in the Jonathan Stride detective series. I ienjoy the authors previous books and highly recommend this book as one of his best.
There is a intelligent complexity to his writing that captures the reader and take you through the mind of the detective as well as the suspects. I enjoy the author's well crafted sleuth and how he builds intensity to the conclusion. I will not give this excellent novel away as each reader should discover it for themselves. If you are a fan of thrillers, of the author and or mystery stories you will enjoy reading this excellent representative of the genre . 5 stars for this next in series and I look forward to the next Jonathan Stride novel.

I have loved and read ALL of Brian Freeman's books including the Jonathan Stride series. I wait for the next book ALWAYS! Alter Ego by Brian Freeman, published by Quercus(US), should get 6 stars! A man on a mission is killed when a deer is hit by his Impala in (of course) Duluth. Inside the car is also a recently fired glock and $10,000 in cash. Also, an ad about a movie being shot in Duluth about a "Caged Girl" was crumbled inside the car.
Stride and Maggie Bei (Stride's partner for a number of years) had worked on the case the movie is based on a decade ago. At that time, 3 women were dead before the man responsible was apprehended during the 4th case. Chris Leipold, son of the murderer, Art Leipold, is the producer of the movie and has a friendship with Jonathan Stride.
During the movie shoot, an intern from the set had been missing for 2 days: Haley; her apartment cleared out.
Serena Stride (also a detective and Jonathan Stride's wife), meets the lead female role< Aimee, at a cast party
Aimee has a bit of (psychic?) spirit and tells Serena that Haley is a spy- not a motion picture intern. Actually, Haley had been staying in a vacant attic with a fine telescope pointed at the bedroom of the famous actor (and star of the movie) Dean Casperson. Jonathan drove out to the cabin where the three "caged" girls died. Then he met with Lori, whom Stride had rescued that decade ago.
The man in the earlier car accident remains a John Doe - also he is seen on tape at the last cast party loading a girl into his car.
As Jonathan gets further into the case, he begins to have suspicions about Dean Casperson. Lori meets with Aimee and tells her she has no idea how to play her role. She describes the cage she was in - how she became an animal, a beast, inhuman.
In the meantime, since the John Doe had a Florida connection, they look up Haley Adams and find out that she has been dead for two years. Perhaps this Haley, who is missing, is someone else?
Cab Bolton, PI, (another supreme series of Freeman) from Florida meets up with Maggie and after time investigating the case in Florida, goes with Maggie back to Duluth. The Haley Adams that was missing, was Cab's assistant. The cases begin to blend. Now, when a 15 year old girl has died and was seen at the cast party with John Doe, things take on a new dimension. Cat (Stride's adopted 17 year old daughter) and all-around guy, Curt, get involved, and the REAL "fun" begins.
Was Art Leipold REALLY the man who took the lives of 3 (almost 4) women 10 years ago?
Where does Aimee go missing? And how do the pieces of the puzzle all fit into place? Knowing that this would be a spoiler, no more here. All I can say is that Brian Freeman ALWAYS is a wonderful read I highly recommend this book (and ALL of his books) to all!
Thanks to NetGalley and Quercus(US) for the pleasure of writing this review!

Alter Ego by Brian Freeman is the 9th entry in the Jonathan Stride detective series. In my opinion it is the best! It’s winter in Duluth, MN (isn’t it always?) and a Hollywood movie is being filmed there about a serial murder case from Stride’s past. The biggest actor in Hollywood, Dean Casperson, is playing the part of Stride. The whole city is excited about the movie. Murder doesn’t stop for movies though. A man is found killed in a car on the highway and his ID is fake. Stride can’t find the man’s real identity. At the same time, and intern from the college film school who was working on the movie goes missing. Are these 2 crimes related? Are they related to the movie production? Stride, his detective wife Serena, and partner Maggie will do their best to find out. This book was extremely well written and kept me guessing to the end. The action was exciting and the reveals satisfying. I loved the crossover of character Florida PI Cab Bolton from Freeman’s other series. It fit in seamlessly with the story and I hope to see more of Cab in Duluth! Thanks to the publisher and Net Galley for a free copy of this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was my third book by this author and it has been a long time since I read the first and second ones. I am officially making a mental note to myself right now - "Read more Brian Freeman".

There were so many plot twists on in this book. It was absolutely wonderful and I loved it!

I just knew early on in this book "who done it", and, of course, I wasn't even close. However, it turns out that my first pick was definitely a bad guy.

I thought through most of this book that we were going to only find a killer, one killer. I was SO wrong (Yay!!). With two or more bad people (nope, not a spoiler) bobbing up out of the water, the crimes are many and truly heinous.

No one without reading this book is going to get this part as it is solely intended for the author - Facebook Live? Way to go!!! I was clapping my hands and pump fisting simultaneously on that one!

An excellent read that truly kept my mind off the big storm that was happening in real life right outside my window as I was mesmerized in this twisting tale of power and corruption.

Thanks to Quercus Books and Net Galley for providing me with a free e-galley in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.

Another fantastic book by Brian Freeman. I just loved all the twists and turns in this book. it's something that could have been ripped from today's headlines. Thanks for the advanced reader copy.

This was a very entertaining, strong installment to the Jonathan Stride series. I loved the combining of Cab Bolton from his other series into the mix on this one. Good mystery, great characters.

Another fabulous installment in the Stride series that goes beyond just the usual cast of characters. It is as if the author wrote this book just for me. I am that person who absolutely loves it when tv shows do the "crossover" and blends one story line across two different shows with different casts of characters and that is exactly what this author has done with his Stride and Cab Bolton series! The murder seems to link to an old unsolved murder in Naples, Florida which is what brings Cab into the mix. As usual the author has woven a multilayered plot with excellent character development that enhances the story with the interpersonal relationships at play in this book. I absolutely could not put this book down and am now impatiently awaiting the next book in the series to be written!

When I started reading Alter Ego, Brian Freeman’s latest, I kept thinking “wait, I KNOW this Jonathan Stride, a cop from Duluth, I recognize his house…” But then I thought maybe I was getting him mixed up with a character in John Sandford’s Lucas Davenport/Virgil Flowers series – or maybe it was in one of Owen Laukkanen’s Kirk Stevens/Carla Windermere series – holy crap, how many mystery/thrillers are set in Minnesota, right? Apparently, quite a few! But I couldn’t recall anything specific, so I plunged in.

First off, Brad Freeman is a master at creating setting. I kept feeling cold reading about Duluth in the winter. Then, I got WARM when his characters moved to the sticky humid heat of Florida. It’s awesome, actually.

And just the way he hooks the reader in: on the first pages, a freakish accident on a remote snowy Minnesota highway in January seems straightforward…until the driver turns out to have a wad of cash, a recently fired gun, and seems to be a “ghost” with no identity.

Then, a college coed disappears – are the two incidents related? But why would a person who looks like a hired assassin be mixed up with a coed? And it turns out that an LA-based movie crew with an award-winning megastar (think Tom Cruise, maybe?) is shooting on location in Duluth for a major film based on Stride’s own exploits and that whole operation has some weird things going on.

Readers familiar with the other books in the Jonathan Stride series will encounter some familiar characters, including Serena Stride, Jonathan’s wife (also a cop), Cat Mateo, the teenager who was a prominent character in an earlier Stride book, and Maggie Bei, Stride’s Chinese-American partner with whom he has a complicated history. As I read about them, bits of memory began to surface (oh RIGHT, I remembered Maggie’s quirky/prickly personality and Cat’s traumatic history…and Stride’s house, by the shores of the lake. In winter. Duluth in January. In freezing weather.

The title refers to Dean Casperson, the star of the film, the man playing the character based on Stride. He is Stride’s alter ego, actually, and somehow is creepy from the get-go. But how could he be involved in what seems to be the work of a serial killer?

Freeman is great at developing the characters and furthering their stories, setting up future exploits in Duluth. As for plot, I am one of those people who pretty much NEVER figures out the plot, so maybe it isn’t that significant that I was surprised by the revelations in the last 20% of the book.

So, I was right: when I finished the book, I looked on goodreads and I DID know the character. Turns out that in 2014 I read The Cold Nowhere, #7 in the Jonathan Stride series, and I liked it a lot (on goodreads it is marked as “new-author-I-like”) so I’m clueless as to how I have missed other books in the series. The two Stride books I have read are both totally able to be read as standalone novels, but I sort of wish I had at least read #8 -#10 to be totally up to speed on the events in the lives of the characters in between my enjoyment of #7 and #11. Apparently Cab Bolton, who plays a big part in Alter Ego, appeared in two previous Freeman books as well as earlier in the Stride series (and I would bet money that we will see Cab again!)

I loved this book. Yes, I am an “easy grader” in my real life, which may blend into my reviewing life, but I give this 5 stars and thank Quercus Publishing and NetGalley for a copy of Alter Ego in exchange for my honest review. Highly recommended.

Another Stride homerun! Love following the new adventures of the team, but this book takes us back and shows us a glimpse of what a case does to detectives and victims in the future. Interesting and unusual perspective! As usual, well written mystery, great characters and plenty of surprises.

First Sentence: The man in the Australian oilskin coat and black cowboy hat didn’t realize it yet, but fate had already dealt him the thirteenth tarot card.

The auto of a single-car crash is found with the driver dead and without any identifying documents. In the car is a recently fired gun. When the report of a missing college student reaches the desk of Lieutenant Jonathan Stride, he’s concerned that the two cases might be related. But what would link a student and a possible assassin? The investigation leads to a film set where a movie based on one of Stride’s cases is being made by the son of the man convicted of the murders. Still, someone doesn’t want Stride to solve this case.

After a very dramatic opening, Freeman does a good job of introducing the primary characters and providing their backgrounds. He also outlines the details of the case and the perpetrator of the case on which the movie is based. Both are very helpful readers new and prior.

Freeman brings back the character Lori Fulkerson, the only survivor of the case on which the movie is being made. Even if one hadn’t read the book in which she was previously involved, enough information is provided to understand the gist of the plot and have a sense of what the victims experienced—“Two hours. The docs said I would have been dead in two hours.” He nodded. “That’s right.” “I wish you’d been late,” she said.” The scene of the woman who survived and the actress portraying her in the film is very well done.

Freeman creates an excellent sense of place. Winter in Minnesota is cold, and Freeman ensures one can “feel” that cold—“Snow dusted his hair and melted down his back like cold fingers.”

There is a cross-over of a character from another of Freeman’s series, Cab Bolton, into this one which is enjoyable even if one hasn’t read the other series. Yes, procedurally it’s a bit suspect, but fiction allows for it and the character is appealing.

The story is bang on target with its theme of sex, drugs, and powerful men who are sexual predators—“Every actress has a story about someone in this business. They swallow it down and smile and pretend it never happened. It’s what women everywhere do with powerful men.”

“Alter Ego” is filled with twists and suspense with a plot that is very relevant to today. It’s a perfect weekend or airplane read.

ALTER EGO (Pol Proc-Jonathan Stride-Duluth, MN – Contemp) – G+
Freeman, Brian – 9th in series
Quercus – May 2018

There is a slow building intensity to Jonathan Stride novels. You know the characters, you know the scenery, but there is always something lurking in the background that holds you to the spot and makes you continue on to each chapter; each nuance that brings you to the final conclusion that makes you exhale the “huh” that you had been holding in for the last third of the book.

After eight books, Brian Freeman has combined Stride’s past and presents a ninth book that explores a previous case with a new eye, a new realization, and brings his lead character from the Cab Bolton series to Duluth for an ultimate showdown with Hollywood royalty.

With a movie company in town to film scenes from Stride’s past, a body is discovered that ties to the film crew and when an investigator, sent by Cab Bolton also goes missing, the two team up to take down the elite in the most dramatic way possible and in doing so, a fragile mind is bent further.

I was never a fan of the Bolton series, it just never caught on for me, but using him as a secondary, or was it a primary character; Freeman brought new life to both Cab and possibly Maggie through Stride. Swinging storylines in concentric arcs, the reader is ultimately brought to the center with the realization of the true puppet master and how one small detail can be the unraveling of a damaged mind.

Freeman is back with this one. This was a great book. He has taken the two series and combined them into an awesome read. Last few books have just been mediocre, but this one is back to the easy reading of his early days.

It’s winter in Duluth and they’re filming a movie about one of detective Jonathan Stride’s more infamous cases where several women died after being locked in a box, until he found a fourth woman alive and solved the case. All the women were recorded pleading “Save me Jonathan Stride.”

Stride’s character is being played by superstar actor Dean Casperson, which makes Stride uncomfortable being in the limelight. Then, a random traffic accident uncovers a hit man with a recently fired gun that was also used to murder a woman in Florida and one of the movie interns goes missing. As Stride figures out how all these events tie together, he begins to suspect his alter ego movie star may not be the man everyone thinks he is.

This series is best read in order, but Freeman does give the reader enough background to start with #9. I loved seeing all his characters, wife Serena, partner Maggie, adopted daughter Cat, as well as Florida detective Cab Bolton from standalone The Bone House, have significant roles in helping solve the case. Freeman deserves a wide readership—his stories are just as good as Robert Crais and Michael Connelly.

I received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

"...he wouldn't change a day of his past or correct his mistakes even if he could. They were part of him. They were who he was. They were what made him Jonathan Stride."

A man is found dead inside a car on a snowy Duluth backroad -- he's got no identification but there's a recently fired gun and a copy of an entertainment tabloid in the vehicle. In addition, there's a report of a missing girl -- an intern who was working on the set of a movie being filmed in town. The Hollywood people are all there for THE CAGED GIRL and it stars one of the biggest names in the business -- and it so happens that this film is based on one of Stride's old cases. Eleven years ago 4 women were kidnapped at intervals and left to die alone in a soundproof cage. Luckily, Stride was able to find and rescue the last girl in time. Is there a connection between the dead man and the missing girl? Stride and his team are on the investigation. And what are these nasty rumors going around about the star of the movie?

Fast-paced and suspenseful police procedural thriller with a large cast of interesting characters. As this is the 9th book in a long-running series featuring Jonathan Stride, most of them are probably well known to fans. I have read only the first two and obviously missed a lot in the intervening books, but there was enough detail and backstory that I didn't feel lost.

I enjoyed this a lot, no spoilers, but I do have one huge irritation with the story. And that is Cat. Her actions and involvement just seemed over-the-top and completely triggered my disbelief meter. Other than that, I'd definitely recommend it and I want to go back and read the other books featuring these characters.

Thank you to NetGalley and Quercus for the e-book ARC to read and review.

Interesting and complex procedural mystery that blends old and new cases with a Hollywood storyline. Jonathan Stride is new to me- I'd not read the preceding books in this series- but I was able to quickly pick up the threads. The son of the man convicted of murders, which Stride solved, has written a screen play about the case and now it's being filmed in Duluth, Minnesota= in the winter. Dean, the actor who is portraying Stride, is supposed to be a good guy but odd things and murders are happening. Stride's partner Maggie is a treat. There are twists, turns, and a few thing that defy logic. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.

As always, Brian temps me with the title of his books and once I start reading, I was enraptured with all that was happening between the pages. In his latest case, Stride and his team are working on two unrelated murders, until that pivotal moment when it appears that there is a connection to a movie being filmed. With some dastardly dealings perpetrated on the page, this book takes off like a rocket ship, full speed ahead in a fast-paced and intoxicating drama that I could not put down until all was said and done. Well-executed and staged, the author does a great job in pulling me in and capturing the essence of the multi-plot story being told with visually descriptive narrative that put me in the middle of all the action. The criminal element was front and center, but the crux of this riveting drama was gathering the means necessary to end it and that’s when everything exploded as the rush of the story cascaded to a frenetic pacing that had me devouring every single page as quickly as I can until that intensifying moment where I held my breath at the outcome.