Guest Review: Dead Don’t Lie by L.R. Nicolello

Genres: Romantic Suspense

Jen’s review of Dead Don’t Lie by L.R. Nicolello

You can run from the past…but you can never truly hide…

Detective Evelyn Davis delves deep into the minds of monsters for a living. She’s the best psychological profiler in the Seattle P.D., with a talent that comes from heartbreaking experience. When Evelyn was just eighteen, she received word of her family’s murder in the form of a horrifying video. Fifteen years later, tracking down other psychopaths is the only thing that brings her some peace.

But now two local families have been wiped out. Though the chilling crime scenes suggest murder-suicides, Evelyn believes a serial killer is at work. So does Special Agent Marcus Moretti, whose easy charm and fiercely protective instincts are breaking down all her defenses. Evelyn needs to put aside her emotional attachment to find the madman stalking her city—but with each discovery, this case becomes more personal. She’s starting to suspect the killer wants her—and he is edging closer with every step, ready to make Evelyn pay a devastating price….

Fifteen years ago, young Evelyn Davis was embarking on a modeling career, until her family was brutally murdered and her life was turned upside down. Now, Evelyn is the Seattle Police Department’s top detective and profiler. When a string of family murders start happening, Evelyn is put on the case. The police also bring in the help of FBI Agent Marcus Moretti, a man who instantly draws Evelyn’s professional, and personal, attention. Evelyn, Marcus, and the rest of the team are in a race against the clock to find the madman before the killings continue and before the killer gets to Evelyn.

The character explored in the most depth is really Evelyn. She’s incredibly strong, having lived through the horrific murder of her family and complete loss of her old life. She moved on and built a new life for herself, and it was great to see her strength shine through. Marcus was a great foil for her, too. He’s patient and sensitive to her past trauma, and he treats her with the respect so many of the other men on the police force refuse to give her. Their relationship does move a little too fast–Evelyn is spilling all her secrets and sleeping with him pretty rapidly, and I felt like commitments made at the end were too hasty given the circumstances–but I could believe that they were the right “fit.”

There isn’t really a mystery, per se, because the killer isn’t anyone we as readers could guess. The hunt is very tense and suspenseful, though admittedly the killer’s ultimate motivation didn’t end up making a lot of sense to me. Still, the book is fast paced and kept me mostly interested.

And now for a spoilery bit. This is a pretty big plot point in the book (skip this paragraph if you wish!), but this is the kind of thing I definitely prefer to know about books. I read a lot of romantic suspense, and it’s rare that very important characters get killed. There might be a semi-important person who dies, or there might be people who are very important to the main characters but who we as readers don’t spend much direct time with. That’s not what happens in this book! Evelyn’s only real friends are her partner Ryan, his wife Kate, and their two young children. She repeatedly calls them her “family,” and they basically helped her rebuild herself and her new life. In the first half of the book, Ryan and Kate are major characters. We spend time at their house, see their kids, watch them befriend Marcus, learn how protective they are of Evelyn, etc. And then they are all (except for the youngest boy) killed! And I don’t just mean killed off screen–we actually see the killer torturing them, and we get specific descriptions of the intensely grisly crime scene. I loved Ryan and Kate, and reading about their murder had me feeling physically ill. I actually have a pretty high tolerance for gore and grisly crime in books, but this was past my personal threshold. I have a hard time when characters I know and love are killed off, and I really, REALLY don’t like when kids get killed. For me, this took away most of my enjoyment of the book and made it hard to finish. I’ve tried to put my personal preferences aside when assigning a grade, but I’m giving this spoiler for people like me who try hard to avoid seeing likeable characters brutally murdered.

So, if you’re like me, you might need to steer clear of this book. However, if you enjoy serial killer stories, and the above spoiler isn’t a deal breaker for you, Dead Don’t Lie might be a satisfying read.

Grade: 3.5 out of 5

This book is available from Harlequin HQN digital. You can purchase it here or here in e-format.  This book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

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