Kendra Elliot and Melinda Leigh are successful mystery writers with a combined readership of more than 27 million. ECHO ROAD is their first joint mystery, four years in the making. While they've been friends for over a decade and co-written novellas, this is their first novel together --- and it's well worth the wait.

Elliot’s Mercy Kilpatrick and Leigh’s Bree Taggert join forces in this action-filled thriller to identify and stop a serial killer before he can claim one more victim. While on the east coast Bree is dealing with the grisly discovery of two bodies, women packed in suitcases and left on the side of a road, Oregon-based Mercy is brought into the disappearance of Paige Holcroft, a senator's daughter. When there is evidence that Paige might be in upstate New York, Mercy is sent to investigate. That's where our two protagonists meet.

"The narrative of the climax, the danger from not just the killer but Mother Nature, is exhilarating. We can smell the smoke from the wildfire as Bree and Mercy risk life and limb to rescue Paige and each other."

The storytelling is picture perfect, and we know upfront from whose point of view each chapter is written. While Bree and Mercy's narrative is written in third person, there are chapters written in first person from "him," the serial killer, and Paige. This keeps the tension high and the pages turning.

Elliot and Leigh have managed to write a story that, like a romance, builds as the two women overcome trust issues and come to really care about each other. Prevalent in the book is the way that men all too often discount women and their abilities. The very misogynistic killer, of course, doesn't believe that mere women will ever outthink him. But other men --- law enforcement types from the FBI and local deputies --- also think they can do better than Bree and Mercy simply because of their Y chromosome. They are proved wrong, much to our delight.

While ECHO ROAD would make a great movie or series, the ending was written in such a way that seeing it unfold on the screen would make it happen much too quickly. The narrative of the climax, the danger from not just the killer but Mother Nature, is exhilarating. We can smell the smoke from the wildfire as Bree and Mercy risk life and limb to rescue Paige and each other.

While I have enjoyed and reviewed all the Bree Taggert books, I have not had the pleasure of reading the Mercy Kilpatrick series. This oversight will be remedied soon. These women are strong, admirable characters, and I hope they get together again.