Joanna Schaffhausen has flown under the radar with her first-class novels featuring Detective Annalisa Vega. Perhaps the release of the third and latest one, DEAD AND GONE, will bring her out into the light for all to see. I guarantee you it is worth the effort to jump into this absorbing and satisfying series.

It seems that Annalisa cannot escape from her own family and the constant imprint it makes on her career. She may never live down the fact that she took down her own father, a highly respected police veteran, all in the course of doing her job. Now, outside of her partner/lover Nick Carelli, not many members of the Chicago P.D. will make an effort to help her out.

"DEAD AND GONE checks off all the boxes as a top-notch mystery/thriller, and Annalisa Vega is a force to be reckoned with."

Things will turn personal very quickly when Annalisa is hit with two separate cases. The first is the murder of ex-cop turned P.I. Sam Tran, who is found hanging in a park. A backwards P is painted on his chest to signify disdain and mockery of the police. Sam was not only very popular when he was on the job, he also was a close colleague of Annalisa’s boss, Lynn Zimmer. Even though she is well aware of the controversy surrounding Annalisa, Zimmer would not have any other detective on her team work this case.

Meanwhile, someone is stalking Annalisa’s college-age niece, Quinn. Like other members of the family, Quinn has not forgiven Annalisa for what she did and does not want her help. But Quinn will have no choice in the matter as the two cases intersect. It turns out that Annalisa’s brother, Vinny, had hired Sam to protect his daughter from her stalker. At this point, Zimmer must decide if this would be considered a conflict of interest. Once Vinny is excluded as a suspect in Sam’s death, Zimmer sees no reason to take his sister off the case.

While Annalisa is digging deep into Sam’s past, going back decades and looking at a few major cold cases, we get to see what Quinn is experiencing on campus. At a Halloween party, an individual dressed in a gorilla suit targeted someone he thought was Quinn and hit her over the head with a rock. Whoever was in that suit wants Quinn badly, and the creepy, threatening messages get physical quickly, culminating in the abduction of her best friend and roommate, Natalie.

Annalisa, who already has her hands full, encounters a young lady who enters her precinct and claims to be the daughter Nick never knew he had. It is a wonder to watch Annalisa wade through a continuous mountain of stress and still be effective at her job.

Annalisa and Quinn uncover mysterious things like a burner phone that may be behind the weird messages, as well as some people close to her on campus who do not want to see this case solved. The guilty party is presented to the reader slowly in disturbing glimpses into his psyche. He was the one who took Natalie, and his obsession with Quinn seems to grow with each passing minute. But why?

DEAD AND GONE checks off all the boxes as a top-notch mystery/thriller, and Annalisa Vega is a force to be reckoned with.