In this episode of the Keye Street series, she’s been hired by Sheriff Ken Meltzer from Whisper, Georgia to investigate two thirteen-year-old girls who’d been abused, killed, and dumped like trash in a highly wooded area near Lake Oconee.  The Sheriff had reason to believe it is the same killer even though Melinda Cochran had been missing for eight months, and Tracy Davidson had been killed ten years prior.  The two seasoned cops in the department offer little cooperation and plainly didn’t want Keye coming in and taking over their case.  While Keye is putting together a profile of the killer, another girl goes missing.  They know that time is not on their side when Keye receives a note that reads, “Dear Keye, I’ve started hurting her.”

Keye Street describes herself best.  “I am a detective, private, a bail recovery agent, a process server, and a former criminal investigative analyst for the FBI.  And when I say former, I mean fired.  Capital F.  The Bureau likes their profilers sober.”  So, we know she’s not perfect … but hey, who is?  Although she’s imperfect, she’s pretty darn good with profiling the bad guys.  Somehow she seems to ‘get it’ when it comes to following their way of thinking and planning.  This is one of those series that I’ve managed to get caught up on.  I’ve rated The Stranger You Seek with 4 stars; Stranger in the Room with 4.5 stars; and now I’m giving Don’t Talk to Strangers 5 stars!  Yes, the author keeps making Keye Street more captivating and the plot more gripping.  Even the secondary characters are a lovable and eccentric mix.  The mystery is complete in this novel, but number three ends with a little teaser for Keye’s future, so now I’m strumming my fingers on the table waiting for number four to be released.

Keye Street has a rather annoying cousin.  Don’t we all?  Miki Ashton, a Photojournalist, who has a touch of drama queen in her, sees a stalker … in her home.  She had her key in the lock to open her door when she saw him through her window.  Keye only half believes her until she gets there and verifies for herself that Miki’s home was broken into.  Keye used to be a police officer, but due to her alcohol abuse, was let go.  Now she’s an Atlanta PI, as well as a few other odd jobs.  She takes all the work she can get since she has quite a large mortgage payment to keep up with.

About this same time, APD Lieutenant Aaron Rauser is investigating the death of a thirteen year old boy who’d been strangled.  Within a few days, there are a couple of more seemingly unrelated deaths.  But one thing Street does well is profile people.  It doesn’t take long before it becomes clear to her that the deaths as well as the threat to her cousin are related.  Now they know they have a serial killer on their hands.

Keye Street practically pops off the page.  This is the second in the Keye Street series, continuing on with Ms. Williams intensely interesting character.  With alcoholism in her background, she’s obviously a flawed character, but someone that readers can root for.  Just to summarize Keye a bit, she’s Chinese American, orphaned when she was young, and adopted by a very southern Georgia couple.  Her adoptive parents also adopted a black male child, so their nuclear family was quite distinctive.  She’s been living on her own for quite some time, taking in a little white stray cat she calls White Trash.  She and Aaron Rauser are now a couple, having gotten together in the first novel, The Stranger You Seek.  There is a side story in this novel which was a fun addition to the story, but it never really connected to the serial killer aspect of the story.  The third in the series, Don’t Talk to Strangers, has been out since July 2014.  I’m looking forward to reading and reviewing it within the next month.  Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

*omg*

keyes cousine war ja mit ihren psychoprobs nie wirklich vertrauensseelig. doch was sie gerade mit keye und keyes mutter in deren haus vorfand, entspringt ganz bestimmt nicht ihrer alkoholisierten fantasy...

eine leiche, ein alter mann, aufgehängt gleich hinter der haustüre.

kurz zuvor hat mickie keye noch gebeten, nach einem stalker zu sichen, der in ihr haus eingedrungen wäre... wofür es keine beweise gab!

doch nun sieht die sache verständlicherweise etwas anders aus. aber was soll das???

und eigentlich sollte keye woanders zugange sein und einen fall lösen, der ihre rechnjngen bezahlt.

das muss jetzt wohl oder übel ihr kollege machen, der zum ersten mal im auseneinsatz dabei ist und eigentlich nur ein grandioser hacker ist, aber kein ermittler/privatdetektiv.

ob das gut geht?

jedenfalls is auf einen schlag ganz schön was passiert!

freut mich :)

juhu, das erste kapitel wäre geschafft

ich komm grad zu nix

This is the third book in Amanda Kyle Williams' Keye Street series and the first two books in this series The Stranger You Seek and Stranger in the Room are both really good reads if you like serial killer books. However, since Keye moves away from Atlanta in this book and has little to no interaction with the people back there this book could be read as a stand-alone novel. Willaims' does a good job of showing who Keye is.

Amanda Kyle Williams is taking Keye out of town where a killer has taken years to re-offend:

Two bodies have just been found in the woods of Whisper Georgia, one recently dead the other had years to decay but there are similar elements of death that makes the Sheriff Ken Meltzer thinks that they are connected and he needs outside help. Outside help leads him to hiring Keye Street who was once an up and coming FBI profiler when her destructive tendencies and addiction issues got in the way and she found herself kicked out. When Keye enters into Whisper she can feel that an outsider is not wanted in this town but Keye has a job to do. As she looks over the evidence the more she is convinced that it is a town member who has committed these crimes but no one save the Sheriff is willing to believe her, they all think they know the people in the town better than her. When another young girl goes missing Keye is working against the clock to save another life, but as she gets closer she doesn't know if she can get there in time.

I found that this book was slow to start with Keye really just trying to get an idea of the town and the murders that have been committed. As this offenders seems to be okay with having a long cooling off period there are not any new bodies or kidnappings for Keye to be a part of at the start. Mainly she is dealing with historic information, which means less suspense than the case in the other two books. Also she is away from Atlanta so the relationships she has there do not play out that much in this book. I know that I missed the constant banter with Neil as he was often the comic relief in the book and while we do get a few phone conversations with Neil is it not the same.

I like that Keye has some time away from Rauser in order to really figure their relationship out and how not to screw this one up but I did not like how Williams kept bringing up Keye's sex drive and that she really wants to get it on with the Sheriff. I don't understand why she needed to have this in the novel it did not add to story other than to show that Keye is still insecure with her relationships and her constant reminder that she has screwed a whole bunch of them up. I do not think it added to her character in any way, if you have read the previous two books in this series you know who Keye is, her past and how she acts.

I have a thing for small towns in books, they always seem to have that creepy and eerie quality to them as well as their own sub culture and cliques. You get the full force of that as to how Keye is treated in this town not only for being an outsider and a woman but also Asian. She especially feels out of place with her interactions with the two detectives at the Sherriff’s department who cannot believe that their boss brought an outsider to help on this case. You can tell with each of her interactions with them that they think they are superior to her in every way even on the case because the Know the people in this town and are convinced it is a drifter/outsider.

I was able to figure out who the killer was about three quarters through the book, which I guess lets you know that you meet the killer in the book. This aspect takes away from my overall enjoyment of the book as I wait for Keye to catch up to what I already figured out. Though I will say the book did not end in the way that I expected, not so cookie cutter, which was unexpected and always appreciated as things do not always turn out right in the end in real life.

I think this is my least favourite book so far in the Keye Street series. This is a good book and it is still a good series and with interesting characters but I found that Williams was not as inventive in this book as the first two, I missed some of the other regular characters and this book lacked the suspense I wanted it to have. That said I would read another book by Williams, I personally want to find out what happened to Wishbone and when Williams is going to bring him back.

Enjoy!!!!

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