Blessed are Those Who Mourn by Kristi Belcamino is the fourth book in the “Gabriella Giovanni” mystery series. Publisher: HarperCollins/Witness Impulse, September 2015

San Francisco Bay Area reporter Gabriella Giovanni has finally got it all together: a devoted and loving boyfriend, Detective Sean Donovan; a beautiful little girl with him; and her dream job as the cops’ reporter for the Bay Herald. But her success has been hard-won and has left her with debilitating paranoia. When a string of young co-eds starts to show up dead with suspicious Biblical verses left on their bodies–the same verses that the man she suspects kidnapped and murdered her sister twenty years ago had sent to her–she begins to question if the killer is trying to send her a message.

It is not until evil strikes Gabriella’s own family that her worst fears are confirmed. As the clock begins to tick, every passing hour means the difference between life and death to those Gabriella loves.

Kristi continues to amaze me with her latest foray into the mystery arena by crafting a nail-biting, adrenaline-rushing, and heart-pounding treatise that grabbed me immediately and never let go until that final moment of resolution. The fast-and frenzied pace, the non-stop action, the narrative, the emotional sense of being are all captured in the telling of this intensely riveting drama that all I could do was forego my usual nighttime activity and get to the end of this book because I simply had to know. This author knows how to tell a story that even after it’s all said and done, I continued to think about the aftermath and what happens next. I enjoyed the interloping of back history that gave me insight in Gabriella and enhanced this character driven tale. With a great cast of characters and engaging dialogue, Blessed Are Those Who Mourn is the best one thus far in this terrific series and I hope there are more adventures on the horizon with Gabriella and her friends.