Literary rating: ★★★
Kick-butt quotient: ★★★
Bold is an incredibly prolific author, whose site lists eight separate series of novels, with a total of sixty-four books between them. The series are mostly named in the format, “<PROTAGONIST NAME> FBI thriller”, which does suggest a certain production-line quality to them. I wonder if, perhaps, they are each set in a different part of the country, in order to get the local market. By chance, this one is set around Arizona, where I live – I think it’s the first such action heroine novel I’ve read, and this did add a certain level of interest. “A Tempe reference! I’ve been there!” Hey, I’m easily pleased, what can I say?
The heroine here is Alexa Chase, a former member of the FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit, who quit her job after spending too long staring into the abyss, in favour of a position with the US Marshals in Arizona (I’ve been there!). However, she’s dragged back in to the worst case of her time there, when notorious serial killer Drake Logan escapes from custody during a prison transport. With the aid of his cult-like acolytes, he begins a spree of death and destruction across the state, but with a sinister agenda. He wants to tap into the bleakest parts of Alexa’s psyche and make her embrace his twisted philosophy, with the aim of bringing her across onto the dark side.
There’s an obvious Silence of the Lambs influence here, in the story of a female detective hunting a charismatic serial killer, with whom her relationship goes a bit too close. The most obvious difference is, Logan is not a lone wolf, instead having disciples willing to do his bidding – which is, basically, to get in the way of Alexa’s investigation. It’s an interesting concept, though largely relegated to a side-issue here. Bold instead rolls out some of the usual tropes, like Alexa being given a new partner, FBI special agent Stuart Barrett. Give yourself two points if you immediately guess she initially hates him, but grows to respect his talents over the course of the book. I’d not be surprised if there’s sexual tension in future volumes.
Otherwise, it’s mostly straightforward stuff, and falls into the category of consistently competent, but equally consistently unremarkable. There are a couple of elements which feel like they’re set up to be more important than they are – at least here – such as Alexa’s relationship with the daughter of her neighbours. I was expecting Drake to kidnap her or something: nope. Maybe down the road this matters. This certainly wasn’t a chore to read, but despite being the first book to have scenes set in Sedona (I’ve been there!) and Bumble Bee (I’ve… driven past the turn-off to it), there just was not enough impact to make me enthusiastic about the series. If I was told a well-trained AI wrote this, I wouldn’t be surprised.
Author: Kate Bold
Publisher: Self-published, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
Book 1 of 6 in the Alexa Chase suspense thriller series.