Keith Victor is proud of being a serial killer. He enjoys what he does and he’s happy to let the cops know about it. Actually... that should be “was” since Victor is dead. So why has his seventh kidnap victim Chrissy Weeks pitched up at the police station claiming Victor dropped her off?
So begins the case for detectives Mollie Granger
and Greg Nichols, both of whom have more than enough on their plates in their
home lives than to go wading through truths and lies. But it’s justice they
must get, and thus starts one of the strangest cases they will come across,
with some far-reaching repercussions...
Killer Dead, Victim Alive had so much potential. Sure, the case is in the title and, as the
reader, you go in with a preconceived notion. The mystery is set up, the
characters introduced, and you get yourself ready for a ride. But it’s a bumpy
one.
Let’s start with Weeks. The build-up to her
manipulative character was strong and the character was designed to irk the
reader, which she does. However, you are given a backstory and told how evil
she can be and hear her threats, but besides the obvious, not much comes of it.
It’s odd that as the reader you know she is the killer but you have to go
through the procedural process of them finding out. This means there is a lot
of tell as she changes her story a number of times and yet you know she is
lying. In essence, there was really only one person manipulated in her whole
story.
Granger and her girlfriend Gwen Seward have
an interesting parallel story to the main one in that they are fighting
cultural and relationship complications for their future. This does add a good
dynamic to the story in showing the personal upheavals that people are going
through that sometimes cannot be shared when in the work environment. This was
true to Nichols too, with the emotional toll his wife’s illness was taking on
him. I did feel, however, that there were too many side stories within the
police section and a number of them did not need to go into as much detail.
Then there was KJ – would she have given up
like she did considering the fighter that she was? Even if she did feel she did
wrong? I guess she was manipulated by so many people she didn’t really know
where her future was anymore.
As to the story. The reason why Weeks did
it was a tenuous connection, as it was based on so many “what ifs.” It almost
had to be the perfect timing, the perfect manipulation, and have the perfect
co-conspirator to work, and if these weren’t there, the story would not have
happened. I truly do not understand how she thought it would end in her favour,
especially with her story changing so often between the police, the lawyer, and
the media. As for the ending... where was this going? Designed for the next
book? It was so abrupt I kept trying to turn to the next page. If you look
closely, there is a clue related to the ending early on, but it’s remarked on
so randomly that the connection is not obvious, even at the end.
The
proofing overall was pretty good. The only consistent errors were the mix of
straight and curly quotes and apostrophes and a number of inconsistent uses of
action versus dialogue tags. Some quotation marks were missing, too.
So I’m rather ambivalent about this. In a
psychological thriller, I’m looking for the who, how, and why. I want to be
surprised at the end by how I missed the setup and how it all links together.
With this book, the title made the reader assume they knew “who” the killer was
(and this gets confirmed early), “how” it happens is also evident early, and
when the “why” comes along, well I felt a little cheated. A lot of good stuff
in this book, but I think it was the “intent” versus “coincidence” that made it
a hard sell for me.
My thanks to the author for the opportunity
to review the book. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am
leaving this review voluntarily.
