One Good Book Deserves Another

Genre: Romantic Suspense
Series: Chasing Evil, Book 3
Rating: 3 Stars
Length: 432 Pages
Formats: Mass Market Paperback, Kindle
Disclosure: An ARC of this book was provided to me by Mira Books publisher Harlequin via NetGalley. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.





Three years ago, FBI Special Agent Eric Macfarlane was in Maryland, hot on the trail of a vicious killer who called himself The Collector. As a member of the FBI's Violent Crimes Unit, he was trained to hunt serial killers, but nothing could have prepared him for his wife Rebecca becoming the sadistic monster's fifth victim. The Collector slipped through his fingers, making Rebecca his final confirmed kill...an obscene retribution for which Eric still pays.

The Collector disappeared, and no victims have turned up that match his MO. Then Eric gets a call from his old partner and friend in Jacksonville, Florida. He tells Eric a chilling tale of a young woman, crime reporter Mia Hale, who had been found near the beach after fleeing an accident scene.

The woman had been nearly naked and drugged out of her mind. She showed signs of being restrained and tortured, and was covered in blood. Not all of it was hers. On her stomach someone had carved a number that is horrifyingly similar to numbers that Eric still sees in his darkest nightmares, that he saw on his own wife. But the one desecrating Mia's skin isn't the number five that had marked Rebecca's place in a psychopath's sick roll call. It's eight.

The Collector is back. And he's been a busy man.

Mia is the only victim to have escaped The Collector, but what she knows about the killer is locked away by the drug-induced retrograde amnesia she's suffering. Desperate to bring the monster down, Eric will do anything, push any angle, to get at the information that Mia has locked in her mind. Even if it puts her at risk. This is the one case that Eric can't let go...the one that took everything from him three years ago. And Eric knows beyond doubt that the monster will never stop, never, unless he can catch him before he strikes again.


I've been a fan of Tentler since her first book, Midnight Caller, and looked forward with anticipation to each subsequent book in this very loosely connected (as in not really at all) trilogy. Unfortunately, this one didn't work for me, a fact that I find frustrating, because by all rights, it should have. It's an intense psychological thriller, my favorite sort of romantic suspense. Neither the storyline nor the characters suffered any significant attack of the Ills and Imps. And Tentler can certainly write taut, horrific scenes that are gripping. All of those are big positives, and yet this one just fell short for me despite them all.

The main characters, Eric and Mia, were well developed and three dimensional. Their lives were filled in nicely with depth in their backstory and connections to friends, co-workers, and family. On top of that, I enjoyed them in their roles. I thought Eric's history with The Collector added quite a bit of gravitas to his situation, and the combination of Mia's professional experience and her memory loss melded together well to not only explain her lack of significant trauma from her experience, but forgive her determination to investigate the killer. Without that, she would have annoyed me senseless.

Unfortunately, despite Tenter's skill, I just didn't feel any sexual chemistry between them and the romance elements of the story failed to mesh for me because of it. I couldn't help but feel like they were being forced into their relationship instead of it being an organic extension of genuine attraction and increased sentiment. That's not to say that they didn't have some great scenes together, scenes filled with tension and intensity, but I just didn't buy their romantic relationship like I did for the romantic pairings in Tentler's first two books.

I also had an issue with a couple of story elements related to The Collector. We know from the beginning that this is one seriously screwed up, very bad man, sadistic and brutal. Had my view of him been limited to his crimes and his psychopathy, he would have been a powerful force of terror in the book. Unfortunately, parts of the narrative written from his perspective identified him and showed his relationship with his mother.

Instead of furthering a character study of a cold-blooded monster, he came off as weak and ineffectual in those scenes, a misogynist with Mommy issues. While it explained why he was who he was and how he became what he became, it robbed The Collector of his scary as all hell mojo and lent a pathetic air to his persona that did him an injustice in the book. I wouldn't have minded learning those things about The Collector in hindsight, but being peppered with it sporadically throughout the book had a negative impact.

I thought, too, that the storyline stretched a bit close towards unbelievable coincidence when connections between The Collector and Mia started to be woven into the story. I wish that had been left out of the narrative, because it didn't really work for me and it seemed a bit too far out there to be realistically plausible. It served no purpose beyond displaying an even sharper gradient of evil, and by the time the chips fell and the truth was known, it had become tragic but largely superfluous.

All of the issues I had are obviously quite subjective, and none of them take away from the fact that the book is well told, the characters are well written, and the crimes are well and truly grotesque. For me it just wasn't quite the powerhouse I was hoping for or expecting after the first two books in the series, especially the second one, Midnight Fear. It was okay, though, and I hope to have the pleasure of more from Tentler in the future.

Genre: Romantic Suspense
Series: Chasing Evil Trilogy, Book 2
Rating: 4 Stars
Length: 432 Pages
Formats: Mass Market Paperback, Kindle
Disclosure: An ARC of this book was provided to me by Mira Books publisher Harlequin via NetGalley. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.




Solid, Surprising, and Chilling

Two years ago, serial killer Joshua Cahill was convicted of raping, torturing, and killing six young women. The case was brutal on FBI Special Agent Reid Novak, but for one young woman who bore a startling physical resemblance to the killer's victims, it altered her life forever. She is the reason Joshua's reign of terror ended. She provided the evidence of his heinous crimes to Agent Novak.

In the furor following his trial, her father died, her mother suffered a mental breakdown, her fiancé left her, and she gave up her position as a Virginia socialite to flee from the harsh media spotlight. The woman's name is Caitlyn Cahill. She's Joshua's sister.

Now a new threat stalks the streets of Washington D.C., a killer with a macabre but familiar signature. Reid Novak is called in despite still being on medical leave leave to consult with his partner Special Agent Mitch Tierney at a scene of grim horror. It doesn't take long for Reid and Mitch to identify exactly what they have on their hands, a copycat of the nightmare case and killer that still haunted their dreams, Joshua Cahill.

A copycat who may intend to honor Cahill with a most grisly prize: his sister Caitlyn's corpse.

Tentler's sophomore effort evidences her increasing talent and gives her a firm footing in the romantic suspense genre. For all that I thoroughly enjoyed the first book in her trilogy, Midnight Caller (review here), Midnight Fear is more tightly plotted and evenly paced, secondary and ancillary characters were offered a more significant amount of development, and the ancillary plot threads were a bit more expansive but more seamlessly woven into the overall. All were points I'd hoped to see from this promising new author as her trilogy progressed.

I was surprised and a little confused by the absence of crossover characters or storyline from the first book to this one. The series is advertised as a trilogy so I'm not exactly sure why there wasn't at least some connecting thread between them. The only one I could see is the FBI's Violent Crimes Unit. Both Trevor Rivette (Midnight Caller) and Reid are FBI agents with the VCU, but that's a slight connection at best. While the lack of a better one makes each book easy to read as a stand-alone, there's also nothing to point to and say, "I've got to keep reading this series because I have to find out what happens next!"

I enjoyed this book slightly more than its predecessor, which is a good thing, I think. The suspense threads worked a bit better for me here, were more tense and suspenseful, and I didn't get the slight sense of over-reaching contrivance I got in places in the first one. Nor, thank goodness, did the moments of protagonist stupidity that hampered the first book trend over to this one. I liked Reid and Caitlyn quite a lot, and I can't say the same about both Trevor (who I liked) and Rain (who I wasn't as fond of) in Midnight Caller.

Special props to Tentler for two very important things: I was surprised by the identity of the killer, and I didn't figure it out until Tentler started to drop the more obvious hints. I can't tell you how rare that is for me, and what a pleasant surprise when it happens. Even nicer (if you can call it that), the identity of the killer made sense to me in a sick, dark sort of way, instead of being too impossible/unlikely to believe. I appreciated that Tentler seemed to make a conscious effort to tie the threads all together.

The romance between Reid and Caitlyn was well done and felt organic to the characters and their situation. It was as low key and subdued as Reid and Caitlyn were in their lives and with their struggles. That fit perfectly with the tone of the book and the external conflict, but it was a little too low key and subdued for my personal taste to really thrill to it. My preferences lean a bit more towards the passion and intensity end of romance and I felt like there were a few places where the relationship between Reid and Caitlyn could have heated up a little and still remained true to the story and the characters.

If Tentler keeps firing on all cylinders like she is here, she's got a long and wildly successful career in front of her. Her characters are real people with real problems outside the main arc of the conflict. They have realistic emotional reactions and deal with things in a way that reflects a wide spectrum of human responses. In short, I believe them, more so in this book than the last, but I do believe them. I can't wait to see what comes next. Hopefully it will be something that ties the trilogy together for me more securely than just an FBI Violent Crimes Unit.

Genre: Romantic Suspense
Series: Chasing Evil Trilogy, Book 1
Rating: 4 Stars
Length: 410 Pages
Formats: Mass Market Paperback, Kindle



A Solid Romantic Suspense/Thriller Debut

FBI Special Agent Trevor Rivette of the Violent Crimes Unit has been tracking The Vampire Killer for over a year as the trail of corpses stretches through five different cities. The latest victim brings Trevor back to the city of his youth, stirring the demons of his past even as he hunts for a nightmare in the present. In the sultry city of New Orleans a killer stalks the young Goth community, leaving blood-drained corpses and a widening swath of terror.

Psychologist Dr. Rain Sommers is used to shocking phone calls on her nighttime radio show, Midnight Confessions, but when a man who calls himself Dante starts asking about blood and bondage, a chill goes through her. Though she cuts him off quickly, Rain can't shake the feeling that Dante wasn't a prank caller, he was something far more dangerous. When Special Agent Rivette introduces himself the next day and asks for a copy of the tape from the show, Rain's suspicions are confirmed, and she is forced to acknowledge that a vicious killer has turned his sadistic attention towards her.

Rain gives Trevor the first real shot at trapping a monster, but as they spend more and more time together it becomes harder to separate the job to keep her safe from his need to keep her safe. And with death stalking so closely, even the shortest lapse of objectivity and professionalism could have haunting, deadly consequences.

Leslie Tentler kicks off a new romantic suspense thriller trilogy with Midnight Caller, and the debut has a lot going for it. Tentler impressed with her flowing narrative and realistic characters, the depth and originality of some of the twists in plot, and a genuine N'Awlins flavor in the tone. While I tend to be predisposed to liking most books in my preferred genres, Tentler managed to catch my attention beyond that, and the debut was a more seasoned story than I was expecting.

Less police procedural and more psychological thriller, the investigative aspects of the hunt for a serial killer weren't overly detailed, but Tentler built a nice level of tension and fleshed out the story with several intriguing subplots and plot threads that added interest to both Trevor's and Rain's characters. Trevor's backstory played a huge role in defining him, and the crippled family ties were a nice touch that added a lot of pathos to the story. He was a dark, somber character - fitting in maybe a little too well with a dark, somber book - and while I would have preferred a little more happiness or signs of humor to balance out the death and the danger, the lack seemed an organic extension of his history. He may not have been a bucket of laughs, but he was believable.

Rain was less so. Admittedly, I have no experience with psychologists or psychiatrists, no knowledge of therapy beyond the fictional, but I had a truly difficult time buying her as an educated psychologist. In fact, I had a hard time liking her at all. It's not that there was anything particularly objectionable about her character, but she just seemed so bland and often came across as timid and passive. I enjoyed the details of her mother's history, but could never seem to connect to her on her own merits.

Between my issues with her, and Trevor's somber personality, I can't say the romance threads of the plot were completely successful for me, but I do think that their relationship was well written, the development nicely paced, and the conflicts within it deftly handled. The suspense and thriller threads were stronger, and I really enjoyed the number of red herrings and twists that were included. I was particularly impressed with the questions that remained unanswered and the thin layer of paranormal potential that was left largely for the reader to make up their mind to believe or disbelieve.

There were a few issues with the story that nagged me a little. I can't stand when lead characters, especially the damsels, purposely do remarkably stupid things, and there was one instance in particular in this book that bugged the heck out of me. If a known serial killer is stalking you and you have police protection in your house for good reason, maybe that's not the best time to slip out at night for a jaunt across town with no one the wiser. I'm just saying. And while I did appreciate the information that trip gleaned and felt it added much to the definition of Trevor's character, I thought the method was a bit odd and off putting.

Beyond that, there were a few plot threads that didn't quite connect for me. In one, the third person point of view narrative switched focus to an unknown character, I thought as I was reading that it was the killer, but by the end, the emotions and thoughts expressed didn't fit with what we learn about the killer, so I was retroactively confused about the whole scene and unsure of its purpose.

Debut or not, Tentler has proven her ability to tell a complex tale with unique and layered characters. While there were some aspects I wasn't totally sold on, Midnight Caller impressed me as a solid read in a genre that I enjoy. If this is where Tentler is starting, I can only imagine the brightness of her future, because this was a sophisticated and polished story with a lot going for it. I'll definitely be checking back with Tentler when the second in this trilogy, Midnight Fear becomes available next month.

Disclosure: This book was provided to me free of charge through the Amazon.com Vine program for the purpose of an honest review. All thoughts, comments, and ratings are my own.