The Morning After
by Lisa JacksonBook 2 of Savannah
~ Goodreads ~
Rating: 3.0 Stars
His Victims...
A woman is frantic as she awakens in a dark, closed space. From above her comes the muffled sound of cruel laughter, followed by the hard splatter of dirt. Pure terror takes over as she realizes she’s being buried alive—and her last breath is a scream that no one but a sadistic killer will hear...
Will Take His Secrets...
To journalist Nikki Gillette, this disturbing story is a ticket out of small-town Savannah and on to the big time. She’s already given the killer a nickname—The Grave Robber—and she’s spending every minute dogging tough cop Pierce Reed’s investigation, trailing him through Savannah’s deep thickets and crumbling cemeteries…even though she’s starting to wonder about the secrets he’s keeping...
To The Grave
Another body is found. And another. Each gruesome discovery unnerves Nikki a little more…there’s something familiar about it, something she should know. Now, as a serial killer pulls her ever deeper into his sick game, she has no idea how close she’s getting to the truth—or how deadly it will be...
A woman is frantic as she awakens in a dark, closed space. From above her comes the muffled sound of cruel laughter, followed by the hard splatter of dirt. Pure terror takes over as she realizes she’s being buried alive—and her last breath is a scream that no one but a sadistic killer will hear...
Will Take His Secrets...
To journalist Nikki Gillette, this disturbing story is a ticket out of small-town Savannah and on to the big time. She’s already given the killer a nickname—The Grave Robber—and she’s spending every minute dogging tough cop Pierce Reed’s investigation, trailing him through Savannah’s deep thickets and crumbling cemeteries…even though she’s starting to wonder about the secrets he’s keeping...
To The Grave
Another body is found. And another. Each gruesome discovery unnerves Nikki a little more…there’s something familiar about it, something she should know. Now, as a serial killer pulls her ever deeper into his sick game, she has no idea how close she’s getting to the truth—or how deadly it will be...
I actually quite enjoyed this one. It was immensely better and less eye-roll-y than the first book, The Night Before, and far less over-the-top in the dramatics.
Sometimes, there's nothing like a suspenseful murder mystery to draw you in. And as much as the past few Lisa Jackson books have been a little too dramatic and over-the-top, The Morning After was pleasantly, surprisingly intriguing as well. It's not the best in its genre, but considering the recent Romantic Suspense novels I've been reading lately, I was a bit delighted to find that I got drawn in for all the right reasons.
With serial killings and a cat-and-mouse game being played with the police, the suspense in this story was amped up quite nicely. I can't say that I was completely enamored with the characters or the story itself, but I didn't feel bored or find myself becoming disinterested either. I only wish that, as a Romantic Suspense, the two genres had been a little bit more balanced. The romance doesn't even start up until half-way into the book, and even then it's not very credible considering the main couple spent the first half of the book hating each other's guts with no give. A fairly quick interaction and a little bit of lusting and fantasizing propelled the attraction, but I can't find it in me to buy the "deeper feelings" thing going on between Pierce Reed and Nikki Gilette--the first stages of attraction, lust and maybe dating, but then the word "love" is thrown in there and I find myself conveniently ignoring it.
As with the first book in this series, the case ties together in a sensible manner and the murderer's identity isn't a surprise to me, even if I didn't really see it coming until nearing the end. A lot of characters seem to come off as playing key roles even if they are only mentioned in passing or show up for all of two paragraphs.
There's the obligatory "Damsel in Distress" scene as per Romantic Suspense checklists... though there is no obligatory sex scene even if there was a lot of graphic detail about other sexual acts and one wet dream. I'm not sure what to make of that.
Conclusion: Another enjoyable, entertaining suspense-filled crime-thriller/murder mystery in a Romantic Suspense to pass away the night. Lisa Jackson may get a bit too soap opera dramatic with her writing sometimes, but she DOES have the suspense tact in her writing pegged.
This review was originally posted at Ani's Book Abyss / BookLikes in October 2014.
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