Robert Hunter and his new partner are called to a crime scene at a derelict cabin in Griffith Park. What they find there is the stuff of nightmares – a woman brutally tortured and left to die. Worse, a symbol on the body pointing to a serial killer that was captured and executed years ago. Is this the work of a copycat or was the wrong man convicted? Hunter and Garcia are about to find out as the killer’s work has only begun.I liked this book. I was immediately hooked by the opening and quickly became interested by the Robert Hunter character and his past as well as his deductive skills. His partner, Garcia, is also a strong character. The storyline was interesting and had a lot going for it.
Don’t get me wrong, there were issues with the book – many of which have been called out in other reviews (pacing, dialogue, cliché, etc) – that I am willing to overlook as it is the first novel in a series (as well as the first by the author) and I expect many of these issues to work themselves out as the series continues. For example, Garcia comes off as being overly naïve in some cases – allowing the author the opportunity to provide additional detail/background (Garcia is an LAPD office and he’s never heard of “suicide by cop”?). The killer was obvious early on - so much so that our reading group began to question if we were being led - but the motive and extra details were hidden until the reveal at the end.
One area in particular that I hope will be fixed – either by the author or by better editing -- is the dialogue and other poor word choices as there were several instances that were especially distracting as they didn’t fit with the Los Angeles setting/characters (punters, hiring a house, bread dispenser, CCTV, etc) and the repeated uses of gotta, gonna, wanna, and ain’t.
Rating: 4 Stars
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