Bloodthirsty

Bloodthirsty by Marshall Karp

Category: Mystery Grade: A

It was a little risky to pick this book up. There's a little extra pressure to reviewing it. If you've been following this blog for a while, you might remember that I reviewed Karp's first book, The Rabbit Factory. It was a fun book and I gave it an "A-". Much to my surprise, the next week, I got an email from the author thanking me for the review. We swapped a couple of emails and he told me was working on a sequel featuring his LAPD detectives, Mike Lomax and Terry Biggs. I'm guessing that Marshall is still lurking out there in the blogosphere and, eventually, will probably read this review. (Marshall - if you do, drop me an email and say hello!) Given that, I was a little concerned that the new book would be a bust and I'd have to decide whether to give it a bad review or chicken out and pretend I didn't read it.

Fortunately - no problem. This book was even better than the first one - partly because the characters are now familiar. The big difference between this and the first book is that there are fewer distracting side plots in this one. The main storyline has plenty of twists to keep you guessing. More important for a mystery fan, Karp gives you enough clues to figure out where the story is going if you're really, really clever. I wasn't, but, once he hits a plot twist, you can look back in the book and see the clues that you should have caught. It's really frustrating to a mystery fan when other authors takes a turn that has absolutely no setup.

While I really enjoyed the plot in Bloodthirsty - a serial killing with a strange M.O. - Karp's strength is still character development. His primary characters, Lomax and Biggs are interesting, funny and, riding a little high trying to sell the Rabbit Factory story to the movies. But these aren't just cops - they're husbands/boyfriends, fathers, sons, friends - and essentially all of the supporting characters are completely three dimensional. My favorite is still Lomax's father, Big Jim - a character that could probably star in his own book.

As in the first book, Karp isn't aspiring to create high literature here. He's written another entertaining read and has me ready to get in line for the third book (or a movie?). Marshall, if you reading this - go back to work!