Killer Takes All

The second installment in the Stacy Killain series is just as good as the first one and actually I liked this one a little bit more. Just like the first one, this one kept me on the edge of my seat and once again, the “Game Master” was actually revealed at the very end. If Erica Spindler does this in all the rest of her books, I can't wait to read them all!

This book was very different from the first one and the reason I found this book more exciting is because of the “roleplaying-game-come-to-life scenario”. I loved that idea, especially since I have some personal experience with roleplaying games and I can see how someone might get so caught up in the game and so addicted that it would blur their version of what is real and what is not. Sometimes I find myself getting lost in my roleplaying.

This book focuses on the heroine once again, ex-cop Stacy Killian who moves away from her old life in the hopes of escaping all the hardships that she had endured and starting over. I loved how right off the bat, in the first chapter, Stacy was thrust right back into the life she was trying to escape so hard from. I loved how her being a cop for ten years was more so a way of life than just a job she could easily bounce back from and forget all about. Actually, being a cop is so much a part of her life that she takes on the same job “unofficially” even though she's not even getting paid for it anymore.

The other perspective that it switches into is the perspective of Spencer Malone. I'm not going to lie, I was really rooting for Stacy to finally get the man that she deserves and to “live happily ever after”, at least the way she sees it. I loved their lives overlapping and how their perceptions of each other gradually changed from very negative to overly positive.

Again, Spindler's flawless writing style made me completely oblivious to how much of the book I already read and how much of it I still had to read. The book went by very quickly and another one of hers I couldn't put down to save my life.

And even though there were a lot of possibilities as to who was the real killer and what not, I only found that to be that much more exciting and a unique experience in my opinion. In this one, I was completely fooled by the red herring and didn't guess the actual mastermind of the whole game until I was on the actual page on which it was revealed.

Also, we can see how the previous book's (See Jane Die) events brought Stacy to that point and how it affected her further into this new scenario. The two books were connected but also not connected so strongly that you couldn't read the second without reading the first. Even if you read the second book first, you would still get as much out of it as reading the books in order. Although reading them in order gives you the whole story and that's something you can't beat.

The book wasn't quite as perfect as I wanted it to be because the ending was a bit rushed and once we found out who the ultimate “game master” was, we didn't get a chance for the two main characters to get a little more one-on-one time. There was I think a half of a page for them and then it was over. I was disappointed, especially because the next one is supposedly focused on Spencer's aunt and not on the life of Stacy Killian once again and her budding relationship with Spencer Malone.

In conclusion, this book is a very entertaining read for those who don't mind guessing until the very end and even then being surprised by what just happened and how the book is wrapped up.