Blurb:
Special Agent Jason West is seconded from the FBI Art Crime Team to temporarily partner with disgraced, legendary “manhunter” Sam Kennedy when it appears that Kennedy’s most famous case, the capture and conviction of a serial killer known as The Huntsman, may actually have been a disastrous failure.
The Huntsman is still out there…and the killing has begun again.
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JustJoshin Publishing, Inc.
Contemporary, Mystery, M/M, GLBT+
243 e-book pages
3rd person
The Art of Murder, book 1
March 10-15, 2016
Kindle Edition
Rating: ??????
Ratings are 1 to 5 stars and based mostly on GoodReads standards.
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Review:
Lanyon can usually be depended on for a good and tightly woven mystery.
For the most part, The Mermaid Murders was all kinds of creepy fun in an ominous setting with all sorts of suspect side characters. I had no idea the whodunnit. None. I thought I did a few times but was then thrown wildly off course.
I’m guessing this is the first book of a series that will follow the same couple, Jason West and Sam Kennedy. Their relationship starts in this book with the two of them being temporarily partnered just long enough to solve this case.
Individually, I liked these characters well enough, though not sure I fully warmed up to them. It could be because the book is so heavily weighted toward the crime solving aspects that I found the intimacy lacking. Also, Sam is a man of few words and moody as hell, so there’s not much getting to know him.
I thought the writing was done particularly well. Well…up until the sex scenes, that is. These went way off the rails for me with some pretty outlandish similes and metaphors. This from a girl who loves creative metaphors and allegory. It was all…not very sexy, to be honest. And weird enough to hurl me out of the story to take a peek at Twitter. Who leaves a book in the middle of a sex scene? Me. I did. A few times. Because what?
Also, a tertiary character we only hear from over the phone a few times got on my absolute last nerve with incessant erms sprinkled about willy-nilly. I wanted to reach thru my Kindle and thru Jason’s phone to pinch the fucker’s lips.
Other than that, I thought the writing and plot were strong and an overall entertaining read.
This review also posted on GoodReads.