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A review by kirkw1972
A Kiss Before Killing by Keith McCarthy
3.0
I was a bit surprised to find that there are quite a few of these books in the series and this isn't a first one. I got the impression that most of the characters were new to each other and hadn't worked with each other before.
While I liked the serial killer angle and the grisly way of dealing with the corpses (liked may be the wrong word there!) there was a brief one line towards the end of a 'Grand Plan' and then nothing. I am assuming it's the old story of abused becomes abuser but why the dismemberment? Why men of a certain age? It all left me a bit unsatisfied.
Then again so many evil geniuses feel the need to explain their grand plans (before being caught natch!) that maybe the author thought they were doing something different? It was a bit annoying though.
As was Wharton and her boss Lambert. Both quite cliched & unlikable characters. Why does the female cop always have had to sleep her way to the top? One thing that again was never explained was the antagonism between the two. He obviously hates her but why? I'm guessing that it's explained in one of the previous stories but I would have liked a little bit of a link back to it.
What I did like was the pace of the story. Being an unlikable 'I want results now or you'll lose your job' type issuing time demands meant everything got to be tied up quite quickly and I think the writing matched the pace really well. I did like DS Bayes - he at least seems interesting and the end of the book focused on his future which threw me a bit because the synopsis ignores him completely.
Overall it's not a bad book and I did like the story. I'm just not overly keen on the characters.
Free arc from netgalley
While I liked the serial killer angle and the grisly way of dealing with the corpses (liked may be the wrong word there!) there was a brief one line towards the end of a 'Grand Plan' and then nothing. I am assuming it's the old story of abused becomes abuser but why the dismemberment? Why men of a certain age? It all left me a bit unsatisfied.
Then again so many evil geniuses feel the need to explain their grand plans (before being caught natch!) that maybe the author thought they were doing something different? It was a bit annoying though.
As was Wharton and her boss Lambert. Both quite cliched & unlikable characters. Why does the female cop always have had to sleep her way to the top? One thing that again was never explained was the antagonism between the two. He obviously hates her but why? I'm guessing that it's explained in one of the previous stories but I would have liked a little bit of a link back to it.
What I did like was the pace of the story. Being an unlikable 'I want results now or you'll lose your job' type issuing time demands meant everything got to be tied up quite quickly and I think the writing matched the pace really well. I did like DS Bayes - he at least seems interesting and the end of the book focused on his future which threw me a bit because the synopsis ignores him completely.
Overall it's not a bad book and I did like the story. I'm just not overly keen on the characters.
Free arc from netgalley