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bookheaven
Unstable by Alexandra IvyMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
I picked this up for a U for my yearly alphabet challenge not knowing it was #3 (though looking GR over it sounds more like they're loosely related). Regardless, this is billed as romantic suspense and I would argue it is far more a police procedural mystery. It was also quite good.
CW - serial killers who target/torture women (unsurprising as women make up over 50% of serial killer targets), off page rape of the victims.
Zac Evans is the interim sheriff of rural Pike, WI (after something that I suspected happened in the first 2 books). He is horrified to find a dead old man on top of a grave in town, one reading Jude Henley. Only it's Jude now dead and there's a missing woman actually buried there, one with a connection to his friend, Kir.
Rachel Fisher, Zac's ex-wife is back in town now a cold-case detective which has led her to the woman in the grave plus a few others. But Jude is only the first of the killings. With each killing to come, Zac is sent an old VHS tape of a previous serial killer killing his victims and the new serial killer is copy catting him while baiting the police.
Naturally this means that Zac and Rachel have to work together and realize they never should have divorced. The romance didn't seem too forced though. I would have liked a bit more to honestly call it romantic suspense and I would have liked more rural WI flavor (as someone who lived there for a few years)
Without spoilers let me say that I'm giving all the kudos to Ivy for not doing the usual 'make the detective do something stupid to get in trouble with the villain' thing we see SO. Many. Times. Rachel and Zac do things intelligently like simple stuff such as telling each other where they're going to investigate and calling for back up. Also there's none of that dropping phone/gun/whatever other advantage you care to name just because the villain says so and has a hostage. That drives me insane.
I wouldn't mind finding more of this series.
View all my reviews
