(I received a free copy of this book from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.)

After years as a patrol cop, detective Jocelyn Rush is almost immune to the depravity that stalks the meaner streets of Philadelphia…almost. After saving her three-year-old daughter from a carjacking, she ends up in the emergency room—and discovers that Anita, a former prostitute and acquaintance from her old days on the beat, has been hideously mutilated in a brutal assault.
With the help of her partner and Philadelphia’s Special Victims Unit, Jocelyn discovers that Anita isn’t the first victim of these attacks and it looks like she won’t be the last. When the violence hits closer to home, Jocelyn knows she must do whatever it takes to stop the sadistic attacker—even if it means confronting a terrible secret from her painful past.

Before I chose to read this book, I did a bit of research of reviews and what I found was a bunch of 5-star reviews...and that made me decide to grab this one and give it a go...

Let me just start by saying that the thing I really liked about this story was the actually story-telling - I felt like the author and I were having a quiet conversation and she was filling me in on the story. That's how I felt with the style of writing. It was welcoming and easy to read.

Having said that - well, I don't know what book those 5-star reviewers were reading (or if they have ever read a romantic thriller novel before), but I am hazarding a guess to say it wasn't this one. It is by no means a bad book -just a pretty average one: once you work out the bad guy halfway through the book, the thrill is definitely gone; the "romance" between Caleb and Jocelyn was terrible and had no real substance to the story; and the way that Anita was able to be the "sleuth" of the story when a police officer couldn't do the job was really pushing my boundaries of belief...

Anyway, not at all a bad book - but certainly not at the top of my thrillers list.


Paul
ARH