Guest review by: Becki Bayley
“Jasmine, I represent an organization to which you have been referred.” The voice is neither female nor male but somewhere in-between, and I realize its owner is using a voice disguiser, the kind you hear on crime shows. The voice resumes. “You’ve been referred in response to the situation with your….mother? Your foster mother?”
“Are you from DCFS?”
“Not exactly. Are you alone? Are you at home?”
“Why do you keep asking me that?”
“We deal with sensitive, personal matters. It’s important that we have privacy to discuss this.”
I pull the phone away from my ear and examine it, like this will help me understand what the fuck is happening. I return it to my ear and say, “This is creepy. You have two minutes to explain what you’re talking about or I hang up.”
When I first picked up this book, I wasn’t sure where the story was going. Less than an hour in, though, I knew I’d have to skip a few regularly scheduled chores to find out how it would all end!
Official synopsis:
Jazz will stop at nothing to save her brother.
Their foster mother, Carol, has always been fanatical, but with Jazz grown up and out of the house, Carol takes a dangerous turn that threatens thirteen-year-old Joaquin’s life. Over and over, child services fails to intervene, and Joaquin is running out of time.
Then Jazz gets a blocked call from someone offering a solution. There are others like her—people the law has failed. They’ve formed an underground network of “helpers,” each agreeing to eliminate the abuser of another. They’re taking back their power and leaving a trail of bodies throughout Los Angeles—dubbed the Blackbird Killings. If Jazz joins them, they’ll take care of Carol for good.
All she has to do is kill a stranger.
Wow! I don’t start a lot of my reviews with this, but WOW! The Kill Club is the second novel by Wendy Heard, and I’m now definitely planning to check out her first (Hunting Annabelle, published in 2018).
I can certainly see why the synopsis is so short, as it’s hard to summarize this intriguing murder/mystery plot without giving too much away. It’s all about righting wrongs, for some of the underprivileged and underrepresented in society, and the author says at the ends that the stories are all based in truth. Besides Joaquin and Jazz’s story of abuse at the hands of their foster/adoptive mother, there are abused spouses, and a custody battle skewed by the legal influence of one parent. The secret network can help even the score, and get what most would think is the fair result in the end. Tempting, eh? If only things always went according to plan…
I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who enjoys psychological thrillers. Based on the ending, I really hope the author follows up with another book with Jazz and Joaquin. I need to know what happens next! I’d give this 4.5 out of 5 stars. It was a little confusing in the beginning, as the story went from normal life for Jazz, into a chapter with a murder with the killer and victim completely unknown to the reader. A little further on it all fell into place, and then it was just ignoring the rest of my life and turning the pages as fast as I could.
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Becki Bayley is a wife, mom and blogger at SweetlyBSquared.com.
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