Reviewed by Sadonna
TITLE: Nothing but Good
AUTHOR: Kess McKinley
PUBLISHER: Blind Eye Books
LENGTH: 193 pages
RELEASE DATE: May 18, 2012
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:
Special Agent Jefferson Haines and his partner Special Agent Caroline Pelley out of the Boston office of the FBI have been assigned a career making case – a possible serial killer – nicknamed the Smiley Face Killer based on the “signature” left with his victims. The kills have happened over an extended period of time and have finally been moved to the FBI from various agencies, including the Boston PD. While Cee and Jefferson are reviewing the cases, it becomes apparent that previous agencies have overlooked some things in their investigations. Add to that they killer’s escalation of murders now happening more closely together and being staged more publicly and there is no time to waste. \
The investigation gets a bit more tangled when Jefferson’s college roommate and former best friend, Fred “Finny” Ashley, is assigned as their contact from the Metropolitan Parks Department. Jefferson and Finney’s friendship ended badly and Jefferson has not gotten over it in the 8 ensuing years. and it’s pretty obvious that Fred, as he now prefers to be called, has not gotten over it either and completely freezes Jefferson out. But as they are working closer together, the line gets blurred as to whether Finny could be potentially involved in the killings.
As the case ratchets up, so does Jefferson’s guilt and anxiety. First for the murders that he didn’t solve fast enough to avoid more victims and secondly for how things ended with Finny and his inability to get them back to a place of friendship. However, there is still the tricky business that the killer seems to have some sort of a tie or knowledge of the investigation and things really go down to the wire for our hero to break the case.
Whoa! This is a really excellent debut book and I do hope this author is going to be giving us more in the future. Firstly, the characters are really well developed and described. I especially loved Caroline, Jefferson’s partner. She’s a perfect fit for him from a friendship/work partner perspective. Their sparring and working off of each other were key to the success of their partnership. Jefferson is a rather closed off and controlled character – until the introduction of Finny and then he seems to be off balance. Cee recognizes this and tries to reign him in and get him refocused – which is what a good partner does. The mystery elements are very well done here – with the climactic scenes keeping me on pins and needles. The rebuilding of the friendship and more was also believably written with the protagonists learning to trust each other again. The only niggle I had was if a personal relationship existed between someone involved in the case and an agent, would that agent still be on the case? I don’t know. but in this case, it worked out great for the reader 😉 Highly recommended for fans of good mystery writing and solid slow burn romances. I think this is an author to watch 😀
RATING: 
BUY LINKS: