Synopsis: A serial killer is tormenting Atlanta, writing letters to the media, promising to slay again. Under pressure before another victim dies, the Atlanta Police Department turns to Keye Street, a disgraced FBI profiler who is now chasing down bail jumpers, doing some (very) odd detective work, and trying to stay off the bottle. While Keye tries to make the elusive connection between the victims and one of the south's grisliest, most skillful serial killers, the stranger she seeks may be far closer than she realizes.
This part of the review is spoiler-free…I’ll warn you when it’s no longer safe.
At first, when I read the prologue, which is from the killer’s POV, I thought that I had another cookie-cutter type thriller on my hands. I mean, haven’t we had this enough? Then chapter one gives us a literal introduction by Keye of herself…she comes right out and says my name is Keye Street (which is an annoying name, really) and I can’t recall coming across this technique before and I liked it. Then in the next two pages Williams made me like Keye. Really, in 3 pages I liked her. Yeah the alcoholic thing is played, but despite that there is some originality in the character and it worked. I also liked how she kept some things dark about Keye, like her marriage to Dan; we have the broad strokes, but she’s saving the details for later. Good. I hate it when an author tries to give us every last particular of a person right off the bat (for a good example read – and borrow it for goodness sake – Gideon’s Sword by Preston & Child. Absolutely nothing left to savor over that guy; no mystery). Bor-ring.
In terms of how the story played out, I wished that we didn’t have the killer’s blog entries when we had them, since the investigatory team didn’t have them at the same time we did. It seemed out-of-sync with the real-time nature of the investigation since it was told in the first-person narrative. I think this type of device works better when included in a third-person narrative, like Sandford does with Davenport. Writing-wise the story is very fluid and natural; I caught a few clinker sentences that could have been done better, but not many.
I also appreciate that Williams seems to know her audience and I can’t tell you how much that makes a difference. No long-winded info-dumps about forensic protocols and evidence-gathering techniques. No step-by-step explanations about police procedure. No big back story about how different it is being private rather than a public detective. She knows we already read Sandford, Deaver, Reichs and Crais. She knows we watch Criminal Minds, Dexter and Law and Order. And you know what? I think she does, too. Nice.
Although the sub-surface romance was obvious, it was done with humor and a light touch, something I also appreciate. Overall the humor was black and often un-PC which I think is pretty brave these days and made the book more realistic and appealing to me. Also brave is to make a person so scornful of religion, in fact, Keye might be an atheist (gasp!). The supporting characters are a bit color-by-numbers, but hopefully Williams gives them more individuality as time goes on. I’m definitely going to seek out the next novel in the series even though it bugs me that every frigging author on earth has to be a series author.
Spoiler alert!
Williams did latch onto some standard memes of the genre though; red herring suspect being the first. I just knew Charlie couldn’t be the real killer. When things started coming to light about him I agreed that he did have something violent and probably criminal about him, but I also knew he was being set up. She made up for that by killing LaBrecque and leaving him for Keye to find. I didn’t expect that considering the other vignettes of her unconnected PI work and it did shock me. Hard to do to me and nice to be on the receiving end of. However, during the whole Brooks scenario, I smelled perfume in the air; I had a gut feeling it was a woman doing the killing. When Dobbs, the serial philanderer, went down I felt it even more. So when Keye and Williams started talking about her suspect without using personal pronouns, I knew it and Margaret was the only woman powerful enough in the story to be the killer. Eh, it wasn’t surprising and I wish she’d done more connecting the dots with Margaret; the pulling her out of a hat was a bit of a let-down considering the high-caliber novel she had going. Williams did blind-side me with Diane though and that was sad; she was just the office manager Keye needed.
I must admit to being relieved that Rauser woke up in the end. It was corny and I would have been ok with it being left up in the air until the next book, but it was a nice ending that left me feeling positive, which is not a bad thing. I am a bit bugged that Margaret gets away though; shades of Hannibal Lecter and Gretchen Lowell. Depending on how its handled in future, it could be a big PITA for a reader. I don't mind long story-arcs and plot points that don't wrap up in one book, but I don't like gimmicky stuff and it could go that way. Tension-creating fake-outs don't make me buy novels no matter how good the rest of it is. Oh and please don't make Keye a marriage-and-a-baby-woman. Please.
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