Blood Lines
Angela Marsons
Alex Thorne returns
There are two things you can count on in a Kim Stone novel: there will be a psychologically disturbed killer, and a little girl will be tortured. Some variation is allowed in the first. Usually the psycho killer is a sociopath, but the killer may have some other psychological abnormality. The torment of at least one little girl seems to be essential.
Both elements are present in Blood Lines. The sociopath is an old friend, psychiatrist Alexandra Thorne, who we met in Evil Games. She's still in jail, but she's obsessed with Kim, who put her there. And she's clever enough to get into Kim's head, even from prison.
The tortured girl is, honestly, just gratuitous awfulness. The story would have made exactly as much sense had those chapters been left out. As a way of ramping up reader engagement, this gambit is getting old. [spoiler1]
The main mystery plot is actually quite good. The murderer is clever, and Kim has to be clever, too. That part was fun. Kim's relationships with her team are always entertaining.
This was fun, but Angela Marsons needs some new material. She hasn't quite become predictable yet, but a certain lack of novelty is becoming wearisome. Blood Lines is novel 5 in a series of 23 (counting the prequel First Blood). I will continue reading for at least another novel or two in the hope that Marsons shows a fresh pair of heels.
The main mystery around which the novel revolves has, in point of fact, nothing to do with Alex Thorne and only a distant relationship to the tortured girl.