Title: Nothing But Good
Author: Kess McKinley
Publisher: One Block Empire (an imprint of Blind Eye Books)
Length: 193 Pages
Category: Murder Mystery, Romantic Suspense
Rating: 4 Stars
At a Glance: Nothing But Good is, in no uncertain terms, much better than just good. Kess McKinley proves that a taut and suspensful murder mystery doesn’t need to be long on word count to be entertaining.
Reviewed By: Lisa
Blurb: Special Agent Jefferson Haines puts the ‘order’ in law and order. Meal kits. Gray suits. Consistent reps at the gym. But all his routines are thrown into chaos when he’s called in to catch a serial killer whose M.O. is the stuff of urban legend: the Smiley Face Killer.
Dripping paint. Wicked slashes for eyes. The taunting curl of a smiling mouth. After years evading capture, the serial killer is back again. As Jefferson races to stop the next attack, the investigation leads to the one man he thought he’d never see again, Fred ‘Finny’ Ashley.
Finny has his own theories about the killer. And they’re pretty good. Maybe too good. Now, with his career on the line, Jefferson has to figure out if his one-time best friend is the culprit or the next victim.
Review: A serial killer is on the loose in Boston, a murderer who has eluded the police for a decade, thanks in part to the failure on the BPD’s part to pursue a connection between victims—now granted, that’s because there doesn’t seem to be one—which is why the FBI director has been lobbying for years to take over the investigation. The urban legend known as the Smiley Face Killer, thanks to the gruesome calling card left at the crime scenes, is becoming progressively bolder and escalating their attacks. The clock is ticking to discover their identity and stop them before they can kill again. And for FBI Special Agent Jefferson Haines, the case becomes personal in unexpected ways.
Kess McKinley’s debut novel Nothing But Good is part procedural murder mystery and part romantic suspense, which comes together in a tautly suspenseful and page-turning read (I read it in a single sitting). The author sticks to details that are pertinent to both the case and to the relationship between Jefferson and the man he never expected to see again, Fred “Finny” Ashley, his former college roommate. There’s a second-chance aspect to their story as the author teases out what happened between them years before to tear them apart, and though it wasn’t too difficult to guess why they went their separate ways, it was still an impactful moment when their full backstory was revealed and they finally hashed things out rather than allowing the past to continue to fester unchecked.
As for the mystery, McKinley teases out the investigation at a brisk pace without skimping on the action and tension, and while I had my suspicions early on of the killer’s identity—whose breaking point shows that people can snap from what might seem the slightest of provocations—it isn’t entirely obvious who that person is until Jefferson ties everything together and is ready to make an arrest . . . which couldn’t have gone more wrong, and I loved that added bit of suspense in the eleventh hour. It became Finny’s chance to play the victim-becomes-the-hero card, and I was absorbed by the suspense of it all, especially in the epiphany of what losing Jefferson (again) would mean to him.
Nothing But Good is, in no uncertain terms, much better than just good. Kess McKinley proves that a taut and suspenseful murder mystery doesn’t need to be long on word count to be entertaining. I loved that I could sit down and devour this one from start to finish without those pesky interruptions—like having to sleep.
You can buy Nothing But Good here:
[zilla_button url=”https://books2read.com/Nothing-but-Good” style=”black” size=”large” type=”round” target=”_blank”] Amazon & Other eTailers [/zilla_button]
The Novel Approach Reviews 
Sounds Like one for me!
LikeLike
I hope you enjoy it, Suze! :)
LikeLike