Casee‘s review of Killing Me Softly by Maggie Shayne.
The Nightcap Strangler, who terrorized the town of Shadow Falls fifteen years ago, has finally been executed. Case closed. Until Bryan Kendall’s lover is murdered in the notorious killer’s unique style and the rookie cop stands accused. Has someone committed the perfect copy-cat crime…or was the wrong man put to death?
A continent away, Dawn Jones hears that her first love has been accused of murder and knows that only she can help him. But to do so, she’ll have to face the very fears that drove them apart.
Together, they’ll work to uncover secrets someone’s willing to kill to keep, and renew a love as dangerous as it is inevitable. And their best lead is the girl found dead in Bryan’s bed, reeking of the whiskey poured down her throat before her killer squeezed it shut.
A killer who thinks that Dawn, too, could use one last drink…
It really is a shame that I didn’t like this book. Dawn Jones is the spawn of Mordecai Young, a psychopath from previous books. There has been a long wait between this book and the last one that had a younger Dawn in it. So long, in fact, that I can’t remember the series at all. The only reason I knew it was a continuation of the series was because of Dawn referring to Mordecai as her father.
Dawn sees ghosts. She’s afraid that she’ll turn out just like her father, so she dulls that part of her by excessive drinking and prescription medication. I lost respect for her as a character for that alone. I tried not to be judgmental, but that combined with her attitude in general was just dreadful.
Bryan Kendall wakes up in his bathroom after a party at his house to find his sometimes girlfriend dead in his bed. Bryan can’t remember anything and he knows that he’s in trouble. He immediately calls in the cavalry and it’s soon apparent that the woman was killed by a serial killer that had confessed to the crimes. Seeing as the man was executed, it’s obvious that the Nightcap Strangler is still out there and resuming his old “activities”.
Dawn returns home to Shadow Falls when her mother calls about Bryan. Bryan and Dawn have a long history. Some of it good, some of it not so good. It ended with Dawn leaving Shadow Falls and breaking Bryan’s heart in the process.
Killing Me Softly is missing something that I anticipate when reading Maggie Shayne’s book. Of course it’s been awhile, so it might be my reading tastes. The story and the characters just didn’t resonate with me. I would even go so far as to say that I disliked this book.
2 out of 5.
This book is available from Mira. You can buy it here or here in e-format.
The series:
