Chapter by Chapter

Since I loved Envy by author Gregg Olsen, I knew that I would absolutely love Betrayal, the sequel in the Empty Coffin series. If you are a fan of Envy (and just reading the murder mystery is destined to make you are a fan) then you have been dying to read Betrayal. The synopsis probably caught your attention and the creepy cover is what had you hooked. As with the first novel in the series, Betrayal does a lot more than deliver. The first chapter, that holds that murder of Olivia Grant is beyond terrifying. It’s thrilling, dark, and intense. Not in a way that has you scared out of your mind, but in a way that has you cringing (in a good way) at the details of a knife slicing through skin and of a murder.Betrayal is a lot different than Envy. Whereas Envy was a story that focused on bullying and a not-so suicide, Betrayal focuses on an actual homicide. That’s right. Homicide. Murder. Somebody killing another somebody. The novel (which has parts that are based on real events) revolves around the murder of foreign exchange student Olivia Grant. Characters from Envy are possible suspects in the murder. The story doesn’t center around the Ryan twins Hayley and Taylor as much as it did in the past novel, and instead takes place mostly through the POV (point of view) of other characters. Including Brianna, Drew and the Chief of Police.I found myself comparing Betrayal to CSI more than anything, which is something that I didn’t find myself doing while I read the past novel. Betrayal holds more chapters that show the police trying to figure out the murders, which includes lots of interrogations, evidence gathering, and discovering cadavers. The one thing that I enjoyed most in Betrayal were the few chapters in the killer’s POV, not because he killed somebody (duh), but because they gave the story more hype. It had me taking in every detail in an attempt to figure out who the serial killer might be.When chapters were seen through the Ryan twins eyes, the two girls begin to gather more words via their psychic abilities and begin to uncover more clues that lead to Olivia Grant’s killer. The girls are terrorized a lot more in this novel and begin to receive texts from the “Text Creeper”. Who he is, I’m not allowed to say. All I know is that you can expect the Ryan twins to try and discover more about their abilities.All in all, I found the ending of the novel very unexpected. Mainly because the motives behind the killer’s actions were ones that I didn’t imagine. Like the story before it, Betrayal will have readers sitting on the edge of their seats. I would recommend this series to readers who want a series that is just amazing. Like I said in the review of Envy, if you like murder mysteries and thrillers, then the Empty Coffin series is definitely for you.