Saul Black

EDIT: I should have included a warning on my original review - this is very dark fiction, featuring not just a deep dive into the cesspool of the killers' minds, but also some very graphic description of those crimes, as they occur. I'm not especially squeamish, but those parts of the book were uncomfortable for me, especially those that gave the victims' thoughts and experiences.

ORIGINAL REVIEW:This thriller has nearly all the elements that I really enjoy - an whopper of an opening scene, excellent pacing, characters both empathetic and repulsive, and a satisfying ending. It was not without flaws, though. The events were heavily dependent on implausibly freak timing, which is fine if it's once or twice in a story, but here it was nearly every pivotal event. The romance, or more precisely the personal relationships, used some eye-rollingly common tropes. The main character was a little too "tortured hero" for me.

Still, the writing was good enough to overcome these flaws, and I enjoyed it enough that I'll be looking for other books by this author.

Audiobook, borrowed from my public library via Overdrive. Christina Delaine's performance was excellent.… (mer)

Third book in the Valerie Hart series sees the homicide detective is on the trail of what seems an easy open and shut case. A prominent DA, Adam Grant, has been murdered and his wife left with wounds that require surgery. There’s plenty of evidence at the scene pointing to a former felon who Grant prosecuted and who has now been released. The problem is that he’s disappeared completely. The investigation gets a little more complicated when it appears that victim and suspect have a woman in common and she doesn’t really fit in with either of their lives.

The opening of the book is quite sexually explicit but is nothing out of the ordinary for this author. While it probably could have been written around it’s not out of place for a book like this. There are two timelines to the story with one following the investigation from Valerie’s end and the other from an unnamed woman leading up to the event itself. Chapter headings give dates to help keep track. While this is a self-contained story and you don’t need to have read the previous books in the series I think they would help to understand Valerie’s character and relationships a lot more if you have done.… (mer)