Ok, so a quick recap about the book Finishing School and then we can squee about Season Six starting tomorrow! (starting officially in the US and maybe Canada?, starting unofficially for everyone else ;))
Finishing School Recap
Needless to say, there will be spoilers, for you know, the book.
(This recap ended up being waaaaay too long and I haven't even finished it yet! So just scroll down to the 'Joy of Six' heading if all you want is my plans for season six's premiere and general squee).
The prologue opens in Bemidji, Minnesota with this hunting guide called Abner taking two dudes out for a deer hunt in the woods. The two guys are called William Kwitcher and Logan Tweed. Whilst the other two are pissing about elsewhere, William, or 'Billy' spends about 28 years shooting a deer. The deer runs off, Billy presumes it'll drop dead somewhere and he'll be able to find it no probs. So he gets all excited when the other two guys come back, carrying on like he's Da Man and they go looking for the deer but find a corpse's bony hand sticking out the ground instead. No veal for them tonight.
They call the cops and we meet main Cop of the Week Detective Lewis Garue. We learn a lot about how hungry he is because his wife has been feeding him rabbit food and then a crime lab guy called Fletcher Keegan runs up and tells Garue that his boys actually found three corpses once they got involved with the hand. There goes Garue's appetite.
Keegan, who is a Quantico graduate, gets his phone out and calls Rossi. Seriously. Local law enforcement seems to call Rossi more than they call JJ.
The book proper opens at the BAU, with JJ presenting the case to the team (See? Whoever the cops call, they just pass the case to JJ anyway). We get a charming description of what everyone in the team looks like. I don't know, just in case you've been watching the show with your eyes freakin' shut for two and a half seasons (all the CM novels are set sometime in mid season 3) and have no idea what these people look like.
The case is really gross so they decide to take it (it'd be a short book if they didn't). Basically it turns out all three victims were females aged between 12 and 14 and dressed really nicely. They must have been gone missing years ago because there ain't no recent missing person reports in Minnesota.
The team get on the plane and fly to Bemidji. As soon as they, like, step off the plane, JJ gets pissed off because there aren't any SUVs already there waiting for them. We're not in the television episodes anymore, huh Jaj?
But then two of the Sheriff's four-by-fours rock up. Detective Garue gets out of one and is all happy and greeting the team, but then he has this weird stare down with Rossi because it turns out he's Native American and the FBI stuffed up a case on Garue's reservation a while ago. Come on man, how many cases has the FBI stuffed up according to the CM universe? I mean apart from the real life ones like Waco and Ruby Ridge that they keep referencing because, in-universe, Rossi was at both of them (bad year, Dave?)
So finally, Hotch is like "hey, guys, could we get started on the case so I can stand around and look all sexy and brooding in the local law enforcement centre of the week?" In the car, we learn more about the case. With the third body, the UnSub seemed to be more rushed as the grave was more shallow. Oh, by the way, all the bodies were found wrapped in plastic or some crap. Because our UnSub obviously cares about the environment as much as he cares for the sanctity of human life.
And then Garue gives them some lecture on how Bassinko Industries, the owner of the land the stiffs were found on, are some big-ass company that might try and "smooth things over" PR wise. JJ isn't sweatin' it. She's been through worse.
At the Sheriff's office, the team set up their stuff and then get back in their cars and go to the motel where they'll staying, for a good night's sleep.
The next morning sees Derek going for a 5 mile run and noticing how many white people there are. When he gets back to the motel, he showers, gets changed, checks his pistol and then goes down to breakfast. We get a really detailed picture of a typical BAU breakfast. Prentiss is doing a crossword. Hotch and Rossi are drinking coffee, with Rossi nibbling a bagel to boot. Reid and JJ are each "working on a light breakfast". JJ is having a bran muffin, banana and orange juice. Reid is having a bowl of cereal and juice. I like to think it's pineapple or tropical juice.
Morgan grabs a doughnut, a banana, two boiled eggs and a coffee. Oh right, he isn't into keep fit so he can keep fit, he's into it so he can eat like a pig with the munchies. Everyone laughs at him stuffing himself whilst pretending they're not fucking starving and then they go the County Law Enforcement Centre. I'm assuming this is the same place as the Sheriff's office because that's where they left all their stuff. Or maybe they just forgot about it. Oh no, they have the stuff because they use it to link up with Garcia.
Garue ends up taking Rossi and Morgan into the woods to look at the graves. They come to the conclusion that the UnSub is someone who knows his way around a forest and that this narrows it down to lumberjacks, foresters, sylviculturists...basically half of Bemidji. So then they narrow down the list to people who know their way around this forest in particular. Brilliant. Then they deduce that the UnSub buried the bodies in this particular part of the forest because he feels comfortable here. Gee, y'think?
They go back to the law enforcement centre (LEC from here on in) to interview Abner, the hunting guide who was part of the party that discovered the bony hand. It's only as they're about to go in to do the interview that Garue mentions that 15 years ago, Abner's daughter was kidnapped, raped and killed. Garue obviously doesn't watch CM very often because you know that kind of stunt gets right up Hotch's nose. I don't mean abduction, rape and murder, but witholding information you "didn't think was important". Though Hotch isn't a big fan of the first three either, obvs. So Hotch throws the obligatory tantrum and then palms the interview off on Morgan.
During the interview, Abner says that he's known Logan all his life but Kwitcher is a newcomer to Bemidji. He's from some Southern state somewhere, Abner can't remember which one. When Morgan asks Abner how the two guys reacted to finding old Handy, Abner recounts how he had to stop Logan from touching the hand (Logie boy doesn't watch CSI, then) and Billy boy couldn't stop staring at the hand but his eyes were weird like he was "somewhere else". Maybe he was constipated.
When Morgan comes out of the interview, Garue can't believe they're considering Abner as a suspect. The team start banging on about how he fits the profile and then Garcia lightens up the screen with some info on Billy Kwitcher. Turns out that until two years ago he was living in Arkansas and his surname was Rohl. He's a registered sex offender. This is news to Garue so he starts legging it to Billy's to bring him in as a suspect and Morgan and Prentiss go after him.
After they leave, Garcia tells Reid some more about Billy. Basically, he's a massive creep who got two blonde (like the 3 victims), 14 year old girls drunk and had a threesome with them in Arkansas, did time for it, and then moved to Bemidji, conveinently forgetting to register as a sex offender in his new state. Also the autopsy reports are in and it turns out the victims were killed with a prescription pain reliever called Hydrocodone. Meaning the UnSub poisoned them with it; not that they were beaten to death with the container. Reid points out that because the death was nonviolent, it means the UnSub "loved" the victims.
Meanwhile Garue, Morgan and Prentiss are staking out Chez Billy. This moron obviously never even watched The Bill because he tries to make a run for it. He knocks over Prentiss and gets dirt on her trousers, and then she kicks his arse and then they arrest him and take him to the LEC for Rossi to interview him.
Rossi pulls out his mad interrogation skillz, Billy says he's "a lover, not a killer" (yeah, seriously) and then decides he wants to lawyer it up.
Outside, Prentiss is trying to rub the mud stain out of her trousers. Having seen the inside of where you live at the start of Season 3, Emily, I think you can afford another pair. A warrant to search Billy's crib comes through and Rossi and Morgan get going. JJ says it looks like the murder story will go national. Hotch, Reid, and Prentiss sit around going over the case and they think it's weird that the clothes the bodies were found in were so nice-perhaps homemade, even. Then they start whinging about how Billy fits some of the profile, but not all of it.
Then Abner rocks up with a bucket of cookies for the team. Hotch smiles awkwardly and says "thank you" 105 times until Abner takes the hint and pisses off. Reid so goes to eat one of the cookies but then Hotch reminds him that what he's actually doing is taking a sample for the crime labs to analyse. Because Abner is a suspect in a poisoning case, after all.
Garcia pops up with more info. They've identified one of the victims. She was called Heather Davison and was 13 years old when she died. She disappeared when she was 3. Yeah, the UnSub kept her for ten years. Almost as weird is the fact that she went missing in Georgia, near Atlanta.
Then another visitor drops in. It's so obvious that all these peeps dropping round just want to get a glimpse of sexy Reid and make him fall in love with them with their poisoned cookies. This new dude is called Lawrence Silvan. He's a Bassinko employee and has come round to offer his "assistance" on the case. Yeah, Larry. Yeah, I'd like to offer Reid my "assistance" too. The team try to find stuff out from Lawrence, but it turns out he doesn't know anything very useful. Yep, just there to lust over Reid. Clearly.
Rossi, Morgan and Garue come back from the raid on Billy's with the firearm he admitted to having, some weed, and his porno stash. Sounds like they're going to have a good night in. But they didn't find any evidence that he's, you know, the actual UnSub. Still, as everyone points out, Billy's going down again, not only cos of the weed and gun, but also because he assaulted a fed's trousers.
They stand around talking, Garue starts to realise that Hotch just isn't normal, and then JJ comes in and says that another victim has been identified. Lee Ann Clark was three and a half when she was kidnapped from Alabama, less than 2 weeks after Heather's abduction. Hotch tells Rossi and Prentiss to take the jet to Atlanta to see what they can find out.
We flash forward to Atlanta, where Prentiss and Rossi are being accompanied round by field agent Scotty Carlyle. We get a description of Prentiss and Rossi's new outfits. They go and meet the Sheriff and the deputy and tell them that Heather's body was found in Minnesota. They ask the sheriff about the original missing person investigation, he swears a lot, says they didn't get anywhere with the case and that he reckons the UnSub was from out of town. Rossi and Prentiss go and tell Heather's parents that she's dead.
Sorry, did I say this would be a "quick" recap? With this book, that's the same as saying, "it'll be a quick slow and painful death".
Back in Bemidji, we get some text from the UnSub's point of view. We don't get to find out who he is, obviously. Just that he's been kidnapping these girls for "His Beloved" so they can be a proper "family" but she keeps sending them to "finishing school". I'm guessing that means that "His Beloved" is the one who's actually killing them off and that she's not literally sending them to educational institutions in Switzerland where you learn how to walk with books on your head and how to hold a knife and fork properly.
Back in the BAU's temporary command centre, it turns out the cookies were clean, but crime lab ate half of them, "just to be sure". In the meantime, Logan's dropped off the grid, so that's a bit dodgy. And Morgan went to interview Billy in the county jail, but Billy's lawyer turned up and got his bitch on. As it happens, nothing Billy says makes him more of a suspect for the murders and he don't know where old Logan is neither.
We're back with the rest of the team again and they still got nuthin'. JJ says the hotline is being flooded. Abner turns up again to ask "whatchya doin'?" and if they liked the cookies. He's obviously heard that Larry's vying with him for Reid's affections. Hotch gets all frosty, the team finally fob Abner off, and Reid gets Garcia up on the screen so she can get all in Abner's business. Garcia makes some lame joke about Twin Peaks, which Hotch doesn't get or just doesn't want to acknowledge cuz he's all in a bad mood now.
Garcia then tells them that the 3rd and last victim has been identified. Abigail Mathis was kidnapped from another joint in Georgia when she was almost four, less than a week before Heather.
By this time, Rossi, Prentiss, and Carlyle have reached the town in Alabama where Lee Ann was taken from. They get the update on the identification of Abigail. They go over the case and decide the only similarities between the three abductions is that all the victims were blonde girls. They figure out that the UnSub took them because he needed little blonde girls. Genius.
They get to the local PD and meet Detective Paul Wentworth. Wentworth takes them to look at the park where Lee Ann was abducted from. Then they go and tell her parents that she's dead and ask them some questions about the day she was abducted.
We then get more stuff from the male UnSub's POV. This time he's in another part of Minnesota called Hibbing. He's planning his next shopping trip. Yeah, "shopping" means kidnapping more girls, not picking up a jar of coffee and some chocolate croissants. We find out that "His Beloved" can't have kids of her own, because her Dad got her pregnant as soon as she started getting her periods, and the backstreet abortion didn't go all that well. After Creepy Dad was "mysteriously killed while cleaning his shotgun" (yeah, that old chestnut), the girl ran away and ended up with this UnSub guy. They were soon going "shopping" together.
The deal with this couple is that they take the girls while they're toddlers, so they can play happy families with them, but then when the girls approach puberty, the female UnSub kills them so they don't ended up getting raped and impregnated by "Daddy" (i.e. the male UnSub) like she was. Daddy isn't too keen on the whole killing bit, but he keeps kidnapping these girls because he loves His Beloved sooooo much.
On this particular shopping trip, Daddy ends up spotting some kid with a Bratz backpack and decides to spend the night evilly plotting how to kidnap her tomorrow.
In the LEC, we find that Reid is "frustrated". *Swoon*. Sadly he's frustrated with how long the case is taking. Yeah, tell me about it. This is way longer than a TV episode. They haven't even given a freakin' profile to all the local cops yet. Reid remembers how one of the banal things Lawrence Silvan said was that several Bassinko inspectors, including himself, spend lots of time in the forest. Reid decides it's worth interviewing these inspectors to see if they've ever seen anything dodgy. You know, like some guy burying three teenage corpses. Reid calls up Silvan, but it's late, so he doesn't expect Silvan to still be in his office. So Reid, hun, why bother calling him when you could be spending the night with me? It turns out that Silvan is actually still in his office and he gives Reid the contact info for the other two inspectors as well as agreeing to come in for an interview himself. They fix the interviews for Friday, as Silvan says none of the inspectors would probably be able to come in before then.
Reid then calls the other two inspectors to tell them that he's a stranger who's already arranged with their colleague that they're going to be coming in for an interview on Friday, because they're going to be too busy before then and that's the end of it.
Reid thinks about going to bed but we're cruelly denied that scene because Garue and Keegan come into the LEC and I don't care because I'm going to bed even if Reid isn't coming with me. I'll finish this recap after we get through the season premiere, because I think that takes priority, don't you? :)
Seriously, next time remind me to recap a shorter, less ridiculous book.
Anyway, before I turn in for the night/early morning, let's move onto...
The Joy of Six!
Yes kids, that's what we're calling it: The Joy of Six. Season Six kicks off later
As for my plans for watching the actual episode. Well, that's going to be interesting since I'm in the UK. But I'm probably going to have to pull an all-nighter for work anyway, so I'll be awake during the actual episode and will hopefully be able to use magic to find and watch it soon after it's aired. I'll let you know my thoughts on it, whether you want them or not. Though maybe not a full recap, as I'm rapidly going off the whole recap concept.
Ciao for now, have sweet Criminal Minds nightmares! We're nearly there!
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