Customer Reviews

Dead Stop

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Normally I love Jamie Denton's books, but this one didn't do much for me. In fact, I stopped reading in the middle of it and put it away for several weeks before I picked it up again and finished it. Something about the story line just wasn't that compelling to me.

Great suspense and great romance. I loved everything about this book! I personally own it and I will definitely be going to back to read it again.

I really enjoyed this book.. It was hard to put down.. Another great one by Jamie Denton..

Serenity Heights Sentinel reporter Ainsley Brennan is concerned with the package that she finds on her desk as there is no return address. The label on the tape inside says: "Day One". She plays the recording to hear tormented female screams. Not long after listening to the harrowing tape, the mutilated corpse of young woman is found in the woods.

Ainsley tries to persuade deputy police chief Beck Raines that this is the beginning; he reluctantly agrees. After burning out as a LAPD homicide detective, he came here for peace and quiet. Now he fears he is working a ritual serial killer case who has just stared with the murder of a freshman and he fears a second murder as another young woman has vanished. Worse he is attracted to the beautiful nosy Ainsley who he worries could be next.

DEAD STOP is an exciting investigative romantic suspense starring two likable competitors falling in love. The subplot of a major conglomerate buying the local paper adds a touch of reality to the fine tale. The killer is somewhat typical of the sub-genre, as the culprit is in plain sight yet able to hide his psychopathic tendencies from everyone. Jamie Denton provides a fun to read police-procedural-journalist investigative romantic thriller as the predator is watching the "Bitch".

Harriet Klausner

'Dead Stop' is nothing new, a romantic suspense story with a detective, a journalist and a serial killer. Despite this lack of novelty, however, this was still a good read.

When Ainsley Brennan has a mysterious delivery of a CD which contains the sounds of a woman being tortured, her journalist instincts lead her to try to investigate. Deputy Police Chief Beck Raines doesn't trust journalists and doesn't want Ainsley around but her tenacity means he has little choice, especially when he finds himself attracted to her. When dead bodies of young women start being discovered and it becomes clear there's a killer living in the locality, Ainsley and Beck have to work together and trust each other to get to the bottom of the crimes, especially when they hit close to home.

The plot in this book was reasonable but there were some weaknesses, particularly in the motivation of the killer and why he started sending out CDs and dumping bodies for people to find. The romance between Ainsley and Beck was fairly predictable, as was the identity of one of the victims. The author also chose to reveal the identity of the killer fairly early on in the book. This was a reasonable read with rather stereotypical characters but didn't break any new ground.

Originally published for Curled Up With A Good Book © Helen Hancox 2009