The 12th Victim [Kindle Edition]

Having read the other 2 books in Katia Lief's Karin Schaeffer series I was looking forward to this one. With the synopsis telling us that young women are being murdered and Karin and Mac's best friend Billy becomes the lead detective it sounded interesting. The last book in the series was okay, it was certainly readable but I felt it was lacking a certain something. This third instalment was only 368 pages so whatever the book was like it wouldn't take me long to get through.

It doesn't take long for the reader to re-establish themselves with Karin and her husband Mac. They live with their young son Ben and Mac is suffering from a serious bout of flu when Karin gets a call from their close friend Billy. Billy is the lead detective on a new case but is suffering from post traumatic stress. This ultimately starts the story with a more personal element and the crime scene seems to be secondary to this. However, it soon becomes apparent that Billy's attacks are more frequent and this leads to Karin's involvement in the cases.

At around the halfway mark, I found myself enjoying the book but it just seemed to trundle along and there was no real urgency to the story. I found myself getting irritated by the constant referral to Billy's stress attacks and this lessened the enjoyment somewhat. The crimes themselves could have worked out really well as all the key ingredients were there. We had murder, human trafficking and numerous suspects but it just didn't seem to gel together well enough.

The elements of the book I enjoyed the most was the main characters themselves and I think Karin, Mac and Billy make great key characters in a series like this. If the crime elements were notched up a bit then the end result would be a lot better. I certainly didn't dislike this book, but just felt with all the competition out there in this genre, there wasn't enough to make it that memorable. I will certainly read the next instalment to see what happens to Mac and Karin but otherwise, may well have not bothered.

Being a a regular buyer of Katia Lief books for my Kindle from Amazon, The 12th Victim was as enjoyable as all the others.Keepthem coming Amazon.

strange ending not as good as her outher books but still could not put it down never gussed how did it