Early Review of Killing Season (Killing Season #1-3) by Faye Kellerman

Title: Killing Season: A Thriller
Classification: Adult Fiction
Genre: Mystery/Thriller/Crime
Format: Hardcover; 704 pages
Publisher: William Morrow (October 17, 2017)
ISBN-10: 0062465937
ISBN-13: 978-0062465931
Author's Website: http://fayekellerman.net/
Notes: I received and eARC loan from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Three years ago the Vicksburg family experienced a loss no one should ever have to go through. They lost their oldest child, Ellen, to a brutal murder. Ellen was a pretty and popular girl whom everyone liked. She didn't do drugs, she didn't have a secret boyfriend, she got good grades, and stayed out of trouble. Her murder puzzled everyone. The family, understandably, took it hard, but her younger brother, by a year, Ben, perhaps took it the hardest. He vowed to find Ellen's killer and bring about justice. This is his story...

This is a serial read which means it's basically one book that is sold in three separate increments. I'm not a fan of serial reads because I once read one where the first two installments were awesome, but the last one made me hate the whole thing. Luckily, this is not that book. Also, the final and complete version, where all three sections are included, goes on sale this Tuesday. Yay!

I really enjoyed this story and hope it is the first of many involving Ben "Vicks" Vicksburg. I'd love for this to be the event which spurred him on to a career in crime fighting. Ben is a math whiz on a genius level who was enrolled in college calculus at the age of fourteen, the year his sister went missing. He has a knack for finding patterns and uses that skill to attempt to find his sister's killer. He feels that local law enforcement doesn't have enough resources to sufficiently dedicate to the finding his sister's murderer and he decides to take matters into his own hands. He does so by routinely combing through newspapers and searching the Internet for cases similar to his sister's attempting to find a link. He believes at least one other murder was committed by the person who killed his sister. That girl's body, however, has never been found and without some hard evidence linking the two cases detective Shanks, the officer assigned to Ellen's case, is unconvinced the two are related.

Since his sister's death, Ben, a once popular student, has become a recluse. He keeps to himself and spends his free time searching for clues to his sister's murderer. When he strikes up a friendship with Ro and confides in her what he's been up to for the past three years the two work together to solve the murder. Ro lost her sister to cancer around the same time Ben lost his and in some ways helping to solve Ben's sister's death is therapeutic for her. It's also beneficial for Ben because she slowly drags him out of his self imposed isolation.

I ended up giving this story 4 out of 5 roses. I enjoyed watching Ben and Ro slowly unravel the mystery behind his sister's death. I loved the underlying layers that needed to be delicately peeled back before everything could fall into place. I liked the suspense, twists, turns, roadblocks, and moments of 'Eureka!' when certain things were finally figured out. The only thing I didn't like was how the relationship between Ben and Ro quickly and rather epically spiraled downward at one point. I don't want to get into specifics, but it took away a little of the magic of the book for me. I really liked Ben and his dedication to his sister, and would truly hate to see this character get left behind never to be seen again. I implore the author to consider making him a permanent character in a series either as the lead detective or as a secondary character considered to be an expert in some field of criminology. I can't recall ever seeing a series begin with what inspired someone to become who they are later in life. I think this would be a unique and fun way to do so. It definitely would endear me to the character and get me hooked.

Escape Clause (Virgil Flowers #9) by John Sandford

Title: Escape Clause (A Virgil Flowers Novel)
Classification: Adult Fiction
Genre: Crime Fiction/Thriller
Series: A Virgil Flowers Novel (Book 9)
Format: Hardcover; 400 pages
Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons; 1St Edition edition (October 18, 2016)
ISBN-10: 0399168915
ISBN-13: 978-0399168918
Author's Website: http://www.johnsandford.org/
Notes: I borrowed this one from the library.



“Somebody stole the Amur tigers from the zoo last night,” Duncan said. “Apparently shot them with a tranquilizer gun and hauled them out of there. Since it’s a state zoo, it’s our problem.”

“What? Tigers?” 

“Yeah. Somebody stole the tigers . . . two Amur tigers. Pride of the zoo. Listen, man, you’ve got to get up here,” Duncan said. “There’s gonna be a media shitstorm starting tonight on the evening news.” (...) “We’ve got to find them, and we have to be quick about it. I know that puts pressure on you, but we can only think of three reasons for somebody to steal them.” 

“Which are?” Duncan had pulled a plastic chair into the office from the outer room, and Virgil took it and sat down. 

“One, it’s an anti-zoo nut,” McCall said. “Those people are mostly talk, as unpleasant as they can be. Two, it could be somebody who deals in live exotic animals—there’s a lot of that down in Texas and owning tigers is more common than you’d think. There might be five thousand privately owned tigers in the U.S. And three, and this is the worst possibility, it’s somebody who wants to sell the tiger . . . parts . . . to be used in traditional Asian medicine. Almost all the parts are used in one form or another. That would involve killing the tigers, of course.”

With little to go on and more false leads than true Detective Virgil Flowers has his work cut out for him.

This is the ninth novel in the Virgil Flowers series. From what I can gather, this is a spin-off series to Sandford's Prey series. If you haven't read the previous books in the series, don't worry. While I might have missed out on some of the nuances of the relationships between characters, I didn't feel lost. In other words, the book didn't piggy back on any other of the books.

An escape clause is a clause in a contract that specifies the conditions under which one party can be freed from an obligation. While no contract exists between the criminals in this novel, the main thief has found another way to escape his obligation for sharing the small fortune he'll make off of selling the parts of the two stolen tigers and that's to kill his associates. From the beginning we know who stole the tigers and why and we anxiously await for Virgil to zero in on the thieves. As the bodies start piling up, Virgil gets closer and closer to putting the pieces of the puzzle together as he starts following the trail of breadcrumbs that lead to the murderer/thief. I'm not usually a fan of books which give the points of view both the villain and the hero, but this book was a little bit like watching a face paced chess match. Both opponents jockeying for position while strategizing their next move based on what the other did. I rather enjoyed it.

Meanwhile a secondary story revolving around Frankie's younger sister, Sparkle, strikes a little closer to home. In a case of mistaken identity Frankie is attacked when thugs decided to make their displeasure at Sparkle poking her nose where it's not wanted. Sparkle is doing research into the mistreatment of migrant workers and it appears someone is not happy.

Overall I gave this one 4 out of 5 roses. It was a fast paced novel with a lot going on to keep the reader's interest. There was plenty of murder, mischief, and mayhem to go around with a little bit of skinny dipping on the side.  A highly entertaining read with well rounded cast of characters.

Order of the Virgil Flowers series:

The Trespasser (Dublin Murder Squad #6) by Tana French

Title: The Trespasser: A Novel
Classification: Adult Fiction
Genre: Crime Fiction/Murder Mystery/Thriller
Series: Dublin Murder Squad
Format: Hardcover; 464 pages
Publisher: Viking; First Printing edition (October 4, 2016)
ISBN-10: 0670026336
ISBN-13: 978-0670026333
Author's Website: http://www.tanafrench.com/
Notes: I bought this one.



“The vic,” I say, tapping the photo of Aislinn with my marker. “Aislinn Murray, twenty-six, lived alone in Stoneybatter, worked as a receptionist at a firm selling bathroom supplies to businesses. No criminal record, no calls to us. Assaulted yesterday evening in her home: Cooper’s preliminary exam says she took a punch to the face and hit her head on the fireplace surround. Texts on her phone narrow down the time to between 7:13 and 8:09.” I move to Rory’s photo. “This guy here, Rory Fallon, he’s been seeing her for a couple of months. He was due at her house for dinner at eight o’clock.”At first it looked to be a classic case of boy beats girl. Aislinn Murray was getting ready for a date when something went terribly wrong. As detective Antoinette Conway and her partner, Stephen Moran, begin interviewing friends, neighbors, and the primary suspect, however, a different story slowly begins to emerge. With the media breathing down their neck for justice and pressure from their superiors to get the job done, Antoinette and Steve will have to chose between taking the easy way out or getting to the bottom of what really happened.

 “If you want to kill someone, have enough respect for my time to make it someone, anyone, other than the most gobsmackingly obvious person in the world.” 

Detective Antoinette Conway just got her wish.

This is the sixth book of the Dublin Murder Squad series. If you haven't read the previous books, that's just fine. Each book of the series is self contained, and you're lucky if you catch even a glimpse of one of the other main characters in the series.

I've read all of Ms. French's books, and this is the first one that didn't draw me in from the first chapter. Antoinette is a rather abrasive character. She's a women trying to make it in a predominantly male profession and she's struggling to find her place within it. She's convinced she's on her last legs with the murder squad, and that this case was given to her to drive the final nail into her proverbial coffin and her partner, Steve, will be collateral damage. All the pranks that have been played on her since she arrived in the Murder Squad have put a chip on her shoulder, and she's constantly on the defensive.

What I found quite interesting, as the story developed, was how similar Aislinn, the murder victim, was to Antoinette. I found quite a few parallels between the two, and I almost felt the two were mirror images of each other—both relative and opposite at the same time, and therein, in my humble opinion, lies the brilliance of the book. Both had grown up without their fathers during the critical years of their lives. Both had people keeping information about their fathers from them. Both had a hard time growing up. Both were underestimated because they were women. I think it’s safe to say both had tempers. Interestingly, however, they took two very different paths. Aislinn used her gender to her advantage while Antoinette had it used against her. One chose vengeance while the other chose to avenge others. By comparing the two, I could see how Antoinette’s life could have taken a very different path. I felt the way the book played out was the author's way of trying to make us see how thin the line there is between right and wrong and how easy it is to cross.

Favorite quotes:
- 'You can knock down a genuine belief, if you load up with enough facts that contradict it; but a belief that’s built on nothing except who the person wants to be, nothing can crumble that.'

- 'I was doing exactly the same thing as Aislinn: getting lost so deep inside the story in my head, I couldn’t see past its walls to the outside world. I feel those walls shift and start to waver, with a rumble that shakes my bones from the inside out. I feel my face naked to the ice-flavored air that pours through the cracks and keeps coming. A great shiver is building in my back.'

- 'Every murderer says that to us, sooner or later. You weren’t there. You don’t understand. There’s a small dry chip of silence while no one points that out.'

Overall, I gave this one 4 out of 5 roses. I loved the different nuances between Aislinn and Antoinette's personalities. While I guessed who dunnit early on, I enjoyed the twist that I didn't see coming. I wish the book would have explored how Antoinette dealt with the information she'd uncovered about what was behind the squad's attitude towards her. It felt like a subject that should have been broached. Additionally, I would have liked Antoinette's side of the story of what actually went down. She only hinted at it when she stated the person used enough truth to make their lie believable. I kept wondering what truly happened?

The order of the Dublin Murder Squad: