Mujeres están siendo asesinadas en el norte del estado de Nueva York, sus cuerpos encontrados misteriosamente colgados en cadenas. El FBI está en el caso. Dada la naturaleza bizarra de los asesinatos y la falta de pistas, sólo hay una agente a la que pueden recurrir, la Agente Especial Riley Paige.
Riley, recuperándose de su último caso, se muestra renuente a tomar uno nuevo, ya que todavía está convencida de que un ex asesino en serie sigue por ahí, acechándola. Sin embargo, sabe que su habilidad para entrar en la mente de un asesino en serie y su carácter obsesivo es lo que se necesita para resolver este caso, y simplemente no puede negarse.
La búsqueda de Riley la lleva a las profundidades de la mente engañada de un asesino y a orfanatos, manicomios y prisiones en un esfuerzo para entender su psicosis. Sabe que el asesino atacará pronto, después de entrar en cuenta de que se está enfrentando a un verdadero psicópata. Pero con su propio trabajo en riesgo, su propia familia un blanco y su frágil psique descomponiéndose, quizá sea demasiado para ella.

Please note that I gave this book half a star, but Goodreads only allows full star ratings. Therefore, I rated this one star on Goodreads.

I honestly have no idea why I continued with this book. Maybe because I wanted to see how terrible it was going to be. Next time curiosity be damned, I will just DNF.

"Once Taken" is book #2 in the Riley Paige series. Or what I started calling, that series with the FBI agent who makes Lizzie from the "Blacklist" look intelligent.

I really can't stand Riley. Apparently known as the best profiler that has ever lived, Riley's personal life is still a shambles. Still believing that a serial killer that everyone believes died prior to the events in book #1 is still alive, Riley doesn't know who to turn to. While dealing with that, she is also called into another serial killer case in upstate New York.

Riley is a mess of a character. Sometimes authors can work with that and manage to intrigue readers and even have readers on the side of said characters. But honestly, I couldn't stand Riley. You would think she was raised by wolves by the way she acts about her daughter and about to be former husband. All Riley cares about is solving serial killer cases. Without her partner Bill around you wonder if Riley would ever manage to remember to eat and drink because she apparently needs a minder because I guess she is so brilliantly smart she doesn't need to worry about mundane things like this.

And like I said in my prior book, it doesn't make much sense that Riley's husband is just this guy who gets annoyed about the fact that he has a daughter. The guy acted like a concerned father in the last book, that guy is gone in this book with hints he will never be around again left for the reader.

You really don't get any insight into other characters in this one though we get shifting points of view in this one just like in the last book. We have Riley, her daughter April, another FBI agent named Lucy, as well as the two serial killers, and one of the victims. With all of that it would have been great to actually see some well developed people. I think the only saving grace in the last book was that it started off with Riley's partner, Bill. I wish that we had shifted focus to him, because at least he seems as sick of Riley's crap as I was.

And can I say if these were real FBI agents investigating murders, no one would ever get caught. The laughable clues that were left which somehow led one person into insight because of the writing on a card (the person who reveals it is not a FBI agent either) and then how one of the agents should have magically realized a person in the van was a killer was eye roll worthy.

Having two separate serial killers in this book was a mistake. There was too much going on. We literally hit hard pause why Riley goes and investigates the former case she is obsessed with. Let us not even roll our eyes about how the guy somehow managed to live. And if you want an answer to how he survived, keep waiting, none of that is even revealed.

When the book switches back to the other serial killer we then have Riley puling a Clarice Starling and going to visit a criminal in jail who she believes can give her more insight into her killer. I rolled my eyes repeatedly. It makes no sense why she would even visit this guy, and his bullshit insight into Riley and her partner Bill made me laugh. It was such crap.

I found the writing in this book to be just as terrible as it was in book #1. There were typos here and there and once again the dialogue in this book was almost non-existent. I don't know what is going on with this series, but to have so many characters barely speaking to each other makes no sense at all.

The ending was ho-hum and I guess it is leaving things wide open about what is going to happen next with Riley and Bill. ( )