Kelly's Review: ALL THE PRETTY GIRLS

ALL THE PRETTY GIRLS

By J.T. Ellison

Book 1 in the Taylor Jackson Series

MIRA Books, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9

First Printing: 2007

ISBN-13: 978-0-7783-2443-0

ISBN-10: 0-7783-2443-5

Amazon; Barnes and Noble; Goodreads

Concept: “When a local girl falls pretty to a sadistic serial killer, Nashville Homicide Lieutenant Taylor Jackson and her lover, FBI profiler Dr. John Baldwin, find themselves in a joint investigation pursuing a vicious murderer. The Southern Strangler is slaughtering his way through the Southeast, leaving a gruesome memento at each crime scene – the prior victim’s severed hand.

Ambitious TV reporter Whitney Connolly is certain the Southern Strangler is her ticket out of Nashville; she’s got a scoop that could break the case. She has no idea how close to this story she really is – or what it will cost her.

As the killer spirals out of control, everyone involved must face a horrible truth – the purest evil is born of private lies.”

Review: This is the first book in a so-far series of six (the sixth book is scheduled to be released in March) and the debut novel for this author. This is a crime fiction genre book and was recommended to me by one of the members in my Goodreads book club. This book starts out with the crime, introduces us to glimpses of the killer, the detective that you know will solve this crime, Taylor Jackson. I’d like to focus most of this review on Taylor Jackson’s character because I found myself liking here while not even really getting to know her that much. She has a serious live-in / lover / boyfriend / fiancé / co-law enforcement hottie, Baldwin. One of the things I liked about these two is that they worked off of each other in everything from their case to cooking dinner and cleaning house. I liked that. I don’t really believe it, but I liked it.

There was the typical crime who done did it thing going on, and we got to be behind the law as they worked hard to figure it out and stop the bad guy before he struck again. There was enough gore without being gory and there were enough introductions to various characters to maybe keep you guessing right down to the very last page on more mysteries than who the bad guy was.

What I liked: Amazing first book for any author of any genre. The story kept moving and kept you turning pages. If a reader could sit back and let the author take them for a ride, it would be a suspenseful ride, and one worth taking.

What I disliked: There were no real surprises in the story for me. It was just a crime fiction. There was nothing special here at all. While I liked most of the characters, I don’t know if I’ll be picking up the rest of this series. But then again, maybe I will. That’s the problem with this book. It was good while being nothing great.

My rating: 3 ½ solid stars.

Kelly

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