Jo Beckett Books In Order

Publication Order of Jo Beckett Books

Jo Beckett is the lead character in a series of crime thriller novels by American bestselling novelist Meg Gardiner. She is depicted as a forensic psychiatrist who often analyzes dead people to determine the state of mind before and during their death so as to establish the nature of their death, whether suicide, murder or natural death. She often refers to herself as the deadshrinker. The character made its debut in the publishing world in 2008, when the first novel in the series The Dirty Secrets Club was published. The second book, The Memory Collector was released in 2009 while the fourth book The Nightmare Thief was published in 2011.

The Dirty Secrets Club

The Dirty Secrets Club kicks off after an ongoing series of high-profile and public murder and suicides in San Francisco which have shaken more citizens even than some recent earthquakes. The first incident occurs when a well-known fashion designer burns to death while holding to the body of his dead lover, the second incident, a superstar jumps off the Golden Gate Bridge. However the most shocking of all the suicide incidents happens when a United States attorney sends off her BMW car off a highway pass killing herself and three others.

Jo Beckett, a forensic psychiatrist, is hired by the SFPD to examine the victim’s state of minds prior and during death to establish the nature of their deaths. She carries on with her investigations and soon makes a shocking discovery; all the death have a connection to something known as the Dirty Secrets Club, a group of wealthy people with nothing to fear and lots of money. As these deaths continue devouring the residents of San Francisco, Jo Beckett digs deeper into the disturbing and horrifying motives behind this sinister group. Until to the point that she receives a letter that contains some dark secrets that she thought she had left deep in her past, a secret that has an ending with of a chilling sentence: “Welcome to the Dirty Secrets Club.”

Set in San Francisco, the debut novel The Dirty Secrets Club features a shadowy of people of whom all have dark secrets from their past that they have shared with the members of this mysterious group. However, the members seem to be dying at an alarming rate all in a manner that suggests suicide. The Dirty Secrets Club is fast-paced, exhilarating and psychological drama, one part suspense thriller, one part mystery and one part case character study. The author Meg Gardiner weaves one thrilling story that is exciting, suspenseful and one hell of a fantastic read; she effortlessly shifts from one scene to another and follows various characters in the story in such a way you will be satisfied as a reader. Gardiner will draw you into her universe while the story is unfolding; her writing style is unique and addictive to read. There are twists, turns, and revelations to the story all of which a great and well elaborated in the early stages of the narrative.

The Memory Collector

In the second novel of Jo Beckett series we again meet the lead character, Joe a forensic psychiatrist, but she frequently refers to herself as a deadshrinker. What makes her job more attractive to her is the silence of her patients, but when she is tasked with carrying out a psychological autopsy on a living person- that is the moment she realizes that all her skill will be put to task and ultimately to a test of a lifetime. She is called to a scene of an airplane arriving from London to help a passenger who is behaving restlessly. She discovers that the passenger is suffering from anterograde amnesia, and cannot form new memories in his mind. Jo soon finds herself racing against time to help save a patient who is robust enough to walk around and talk but cannot help her figure out what happened to him. For every perplexing truth, he can filter out from his blurred memory; Jo has to filter through myriads of silly statements.

Somehow strings of clue began arising, and Jo figures out it have something to do with a deadly biological agent named Slick, a missing son and wife and a secret affair went wrong. She also discovers that her patient’s troubled mind could be the key to preventing something horrible from striking her beloved city of San Francisco. Moreover, to avoid the catastrophe, she will have to dig deeper into the patient’s life than she has ever before.

The second novel in Jo Beckett series is an impressive thriller. Jo is faced with a nightmare of her life as she is supposed to meet a living patient, unlike her previous encounters where she has always dealt with dead bodies. When she is called to a recently landed airplane from Congo, Africa, she knows that her skills will have to be tested to the core. The name of the insane man is Ian Kanan; he had to be restrained during the flight due to his erratic behavior which saw him try to open the plane door during the flight. Fortunately, he was tackled by two passengers and locked in the toilet while the flight headed to San Francisco. However, when Jo Beckett tries to talk to the troubled man, he appears to possess no memory of what had happened to him and even confused as to why they wanted to take him to a hospital. Upon further investigation, they discover some anomaly in his brain, which translated that he was suffering from a rare condition of amnesia which made him unable to form memories and forgot everything after every five minutes. The man also believed that his family was kidnapped, while he was exposed to a deadly biological agent that the kidnappers demanded in exchange for his beloved family. However, could he be delusional? Jo and her friend Lieutenant Amy Tang are desperate to find out the truth; however, when Ian escapes from the hospital, ending up attacking Jo, and then dead bodies begin piling up, it soon appears that the ex-military Kanan is a killer. However, where could Seth be? Furthermore, why doesn’t Misty seem to be whom she is supposed to be? The second installment is a fast paced thriller that you do not want to miss.