Yet another satisfying mystery from Steven Fisher, complete with romance, desire, and eerily personal connections
It’s been some time since Kevin Mathers cracked his first murder case in Killer Personality;not as a homicide detective but as the boyfriend of the infamous serial killer, Olivia.
Olivia’s spree claimed the life of his best friend, Gary, a respected cop, leaving behind a widow and a young child. Kevin’s courage in taking down Olivia and avenging Gary’s death earned him local hero status, but patching one hole can’t hold back the flood.
With one killer gone, a new one takes their place. The aptly named sequel, Killer Urge, unleashes a fresh serial killer with a volatile personality and a disturbing obsession with Kevin himself. But just who is this killer and how do they seem to know so much?
The first murder happens on a peaceful, vacant trail. Nancy, an OR nurse, is stopped briefly on her walk to exchange a few words with a stranger, unaware that it would be her last. The killer strikes her with a rock and flees the scene, believing they got away with the murder clean.
Later that day, however, a witness calls in anonymously to report the murder and describes it in great detail. Leonard, now the head of the Philadelphia Police homicide department, is tasked with investigating this murder with no clear suspects and seemingly no motivation. Kevin decides to join in, utilizing his extraordinary observational skills to aid the police department in their search.
He’s joined by the beautiful, yet aloof Zelda, a female homicide detective who has followed in the professional footsteps of her father and grandfather. Beneath her composed exterior lies a complex past: her father was killed in the line of duty; her grandfather left disabled after a brutal assault on the job; and her mother passed away from liver failure. A deep-seeded anger simmers beneath her surface as she works with Kevin, who is not at-risk of being murdered himself, to uncover the perplexing truth.
To follow up a great thriller like Killer Personality can be difficult, but Steven Fisher shows that it can be done. Killer Urge takes all of the plot twists, the heart-wrenching romance, and the horrifying descriptions that haunted you in the first book and turns the intensity up even more.
Kevin and Zelda, to some extent, are great foils to one another—an interesting teammate dynamic. Both have experienced loss of a loved one and have been plagued with the fallout. To atone, both are working with the homicide unit toward this common cause. The brilliance of Killer Urge, though, is how Fisher utilizes the real and palpable trauma that comes from isolation and what it drives people to do. Bookish thrill seekers will be deeply satisfied with this surprising who-dun-it.
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