Dead End

Well, it looks like the whole series is going to land at about a 2.5 rating for me. Kaely had a lot of promise but the constant zoom-in/zoom-out approach to her POV made it hard to get into her head as a character. One minute I'd be reading her inmost thoughts and fears and the next I would find out she'd done something plot-changing without me even having seen her do it. This trend continued in this book and took me out of the story every time.

Faith element: this one bugged me, honestly. Obviously the book is aimed toward a Christian audience and the readers are expected to know the meaning of general “Christianese” terms but Noah's not supposed to be a Christian and yet Kaely expects him to know the meaning of such terms. Faith, prayer, God, spiritual warfare, and a few other things are mentioned. It's said that Kaely has grown uncomfortable with “summoning the evil” of the subjects she “interviews.” It is never mentioned why she should have a problem with this, though even in Christian circles many folks don't think it's wrong to hang out with evil. I felt like she could have easily had a reason to quit using her method based on her beliefs, but that was never addressed. Also there was zero mention of Jesus or of what salvation means; just “you ought to be saved” and no witness to Noah etc about what we need saving from. So it really seemed to send a mixed message that was missing most of the meat and wasn't a good example to readers of how to share the Gospel with unbelievers. It also resulted in me continuing to feel ambivalent about whether or not Noah was actually going to get his life right with God or if he was simply going to "become spiritual" and pray to a generic God rather than a specific Christian one.


This one has a serial killer to catch but I didn't think it was quite as dark a serial killer as the first book of the series. Maybe just because I spotted the killer right away? I don't know. There is a staggering body count–just saying.

Overall, while the plot of the book is solid and the author's handle of the written word is good, I continued to struggle with the POVs and the habit of keeping secrets from the reader for no reason. It kept me from feeling much suspense because they did it so often that I was quite sure they were doing it again and had no fears for them. Also, Kaely's methods are so unorthodox that I really didn't get to find out much of what it's really like to be a BAU agent (I'd have liked to see a contrasting view of the criminals from Noah to balance Kaely's methods which better reflects the actual FBI procedures).

Thanks to the NetGalley and the publisher for a free reading copy. A favorable review was not required.