Review: Ground Zero by Aimee Nicole Walker

Title: Ground Zero

Series: Zero Hour: Book One

Author: Aimee Nicole Walker

Publisher: Amazon/Kindle Unlimited

Length: 287 Pages

Category: Contemporary Romance

At a Glance: As always, expectations are different for every reader, and I fully admit I’m a demanding audience of Romantic Suspense and Murder Mysteries. This novel was, in the end, too rushed for me to fully appreciate.

Reviewed By: Lisa

Blurb: Ground zero, noun: the center or origin of rapid, intense, or violent activity or change.

Heat, humidity, and homicide are things veteran detective Sawyer Key expects to encounter on his first day with the Savannah Police Department, but the hostile reception from his new partner catches him by surprise. Sawyer isn’t a stranger to heartache and recognizes that Royce Locke is a wounded man who’s reeling from a devastating loss. Relentless and patient in all things, Sawyer is determined to make the new partnership work.

Savannah, Georgia is known for her quirky people, oak trees draped in Spanish moss, and antebellum architecture. Beneath the Southern charm and hospitality, festering hatred and violence is soaring with the summer temperatures. Locke and Key find themselves at the epicenter when their first case involves the death of a former shock jock who appears to be the victim of vigilante justice.

Opposites in nearly every way, the two detectives set aside their differences to take back their city and restore law and order. From this reluctant truce, an intense attraction grows that will either tighten or shatter their tenuous bond. Falling for his partner spells inevitable disaster, but Sawyer’s always been a sucker for wounded things. Sawyer could be the key to the life Royce has always wanted, if he’s brave enough to trust him. The fuse is lit, the clock is running, and the zero hour is upon them. Tick tock.

Review: The relationship between book and reader is a lot like relationships in life—sometimes the connection is effortless while at other times, one side has to work just a bit harder to keep things clicking along. Sometimes—though it’s not for lack of trying—the relationship doesn’t work out, and the book and reader just weren’t meant to be. While there’s evidence that I’m a lonesome voice in my opinion of Ground Zero, the book and I weren’t compatible. But, that’s not to say there weren’t also some moments I enjoyed along the way.

Sawyer Key’s backstory is made of grief and loneliness shaped by loss and actions that prompted him to leave the sheriff’s department behind and take a detective job with the Savannah PD. Sawyer is immediately likable and relatable as a man whose savior complex and inherent kindness attracts him to what he determines is the wounded nature of his new partner, Royce Locke. Aimee Nicole Walker doesn’t scrimp on the details that allow readers to feel sympathy for Sawyer, detailing the silences at home that are not moments of welcome quietude but serve only to highlight that he is very much alone and lonely. Sawyer earns all the credit for my connecting at all with the story, and he deserves it.

The Good Cop/Bad Cop (Nice Guy/Grumpy Guy) trope proves to be a successful means of bringing these two men together. Sawyer is determined to make things work with his new partner. And, Royce isn’t happy about it. In fact, he isn’t happy about much of anything. Royce is, without regret, explanation or apology, a prickly bastard who makes it clear from the moment he and Sawyer meet that he wants nothing to do with their partnership let alone forming any sort of personal bond with his new partner. Royce clearly states, on day one, that he wants nothing to do with Sawyer beyond the investigation of a “ripped from the headlines” murder they’re thrown into.

This would have been a great way of building some tension and suspense into their relationship…if Royce didn’t break from his own convictions by day two. The line between creating empathy for a contrary character and finding little reason to like said character, not to mention developing an emotional soft spot for him, is such a fine one, and regrettably, I didn’t connect with Royce enough for me to like him by story’s end, as I found his backpedaling too convenient, too rushed and too over-simplified. Some of that can be attributed to the story being told through Sawyer’s POV in the third-person limited. It not only makes Sawyer an unreliable narrator, but it left the connection between him and Royce feel stretched and flattened by the lack of perspective. When Royce eventually asks Sawyer to teach him how “to be the kind of guy who deserves you,” I found it less romantic than a case of Royce needing to teach himself how to be a better man and stop placing the onus of his personal growth on Sawyer’s shoulders.

While I’d love to categorize this novel as a Murder Mystery, I feel like that would also be a bit misleading. The murder of a white supremacist podcaster leaves Key and Locke looking for a killer, but it didn’t leave room for much suspense, as the crime was solved almost immediately, complete with a confession. A double homicide, with racism as the motive, followed closely by a fourth killing, which was a crime of passion, are also each easily resolved, so fans of true mystery might be left feeling disappointed by the lack of investigative suspense. What I did enjoy was the twist introduced from an unexpected source: Royce’s deceased partner and best friend, Marcus.

Overall, Ground Zero was more miss than hit for me all the way down to the potential of the setting. Savannah, Georgia, is a city with such a rich and robust history and personality which I felt was under-portrayed. As always, expectations are different for every reader, and I fully admit I’m a demanding audience of Romantic Suspense and Murder Mysteries. This novel was, in the end, too rushed for me to fully appreciate.

You can buy Ground Zero here:
[zilla_button url=”http://authl.it/B07Y3QW6FQ?d” style=”black” size=”large” type=”round” target=”_blank”] Amazon/Kindle Unlimited [/zilla_button]