30. Killer Instinct by Zoe Sharp

Category: 50 Books

I was excited to read a whodunit with a female protag. I thought Charlie Fox was going to be a P.I., but no, turns out she teaches people (mainly women) self-defence. It sounded a bit familiar, The Blue Place, anyone? But in this one the tough, fighting, female (on a motorcycle!) isn’t a lesbian. I thought the story would have been more interesting if she had been gay, but really, her sexual preference isn’t what drove the story anyway, so there.

I like that Charlie has a smart mouth and that she mixed it up with girls and boys.

The whodunit part kept me guessing, and the characters were well-done, none of them seemed too meh. I mean sure, you had the standards: The Rich guy, The Meathead Muscles, The Main Character’s Friends, The Guy who Had to Die, and so on, but they’re all given good descriptions and didn’t feel trite.

I did kind of have that feeling, like when reading a Patricia Cornwell book, like, why are the baddies always trying to kill Scarpetta, the medical examiner? She’s not the detective, she just does the autopsies, you know? I kinda felt that with Charlie, I mean, she’s a bouncer at a bar? So now she’s who the baddies are after? The drugs, rapist, murder bad guys?
But whatever, it’s fiction and was entertaining.

I’ll give the second and third books a go, but if it ends up like a Scarpetta thing I’ll probably give the series up. I mean, I realize that you need a plot to drive a story, but it would be so refreshing if the female doesn’t ALWAYS become a target.

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