Cause To Kill: Homicide Detective Avery Black has been through hell. Once a top criminal defense attorney, she fell from grace when she managed to get a brilliant Harvard professor off-only to watch him kill again. She lost her husband and her daughter, and her life fell apart around her.
Trying to redeem herself, Avery has turned to the other side of the law. Working her way up the ranks, she has reached Homicide Detective, to the scorn of her fellow officers, who still remember what she did, and who will always hate her.
Yet even they cannot deny Avery's brilliant mind, and when a disturbing serial killer strikes fear into the heart of Boston, killing girls from elite colleges, it is Avery that they turn to. It is Avery's chance to prove herself, to finally find the redemption she craves. And yet, as she is soon to find out, Avery has come up against a killer as brilliant and daring as she.
In this game of psychological cat and mouse, women are dying with mysterious clues, and the stakes could not be higher. A frantic race against time leads Avery through a series of shocking and unexpected twists-culminating in climax that even Avery could not imagine.
My Review
*** 3 STARS ***
First book of the year done. While I enjoyed Cause To Kill,
I wasn’t overly wowed by it. Because I am trying books out of my preferred
genre, I went into reading this with an open mind. On top of that, I like
suspense/thrillers so it wasn’t a stretch for me to enjoy this book. My issue
was the main character, Avery.
I didn’t like her. Not even a little. I was happy to see a
strong female lead as the main character for this series, but she just didn’t
do it for me. I get because of her history, she had something to prove, but the
huge chip she had on her shoulder made it hard to really empathize with. Her every interaction with the other
characters was the same. She judged, looked down her nose at, and generally
seemed to go out of her way to piss people off.
And I don’t understand how she made it to detective with how she did
police work. She had zero regard for procedure, or authority and just basically
did what she wanted when she wanted because she was on to something. She was
too robotic, uncaring, and full of herself. After what happened while she was a
lawyer, I’d think she’d be a little more humble, but nope, not even a little
bit. One scene in particular that ticked me off was her going to parent’s house
of the last victim. There was no reason for that, I don’t care what she said to
herself to justify why she was ‘asking permission’ I just thought it was beyond
tactless. After that I was over her and all her other antics.
On the upside, the plot was good. That kept me interested in
wanting to know what came next. I liked the mystery of hunt in tracking down
the serial killer. I like crime dramas
and getting into the head of the villain. Learning their thoughts and
motivations has an appeal so I was happy to see why the killer did what he did
for the little time we were allowed in his head. I enjoyed the time spent with
him more than the time with Avery and wished there was more. I would have
enjoyed learning all of his motivations through him directly instead of being
told why through the police.
I’m not sure if I’ll read more of this series. Avery just
grates on my nerves too much and the other characters in the book weren’t memorable
enough for me to read to see how they fair in the remaining books.
The book sounds interesting. Now I want a spoiler--who is the killer? :) I tend to shy away from reading series because I'm a commitment phone, but the mystery in this book sounds intriguing.
ReplyDeleteKeep smiling,
Yawatta
It did hold my interest even with my dislike of the main character. As for the series part, I think each book is a stand-alone in that sense. Like this one is wrapped up so the next one I believe is a whole new killer she's chasing so no worries about needing to commit. Look forward to hearing your thoughts should you give it a try.
Deletethanks for stopping by
~Meka