Speak No Evil is an interesting, though unoriginal, romantic suspense novel that kept my interest throughout. Mostly because I wanted to see if I was right about who the killer was. And I was.
So why the low rating, you ask. My problem with this book is the heroine, Detective Carina Kincaid, SDPD. For the first nearly 150 pages she’s fine. Both strong and intelligent. Then we get to page 149 (hence the “nearly”). First, let’s go back to the autopsy for the first victim. They’ve noticed some faint bruises on the body:
“What could have caused that?” she [Carina] asked.
“Any number of things. And it happened around the time of death. Bruising stops after the heart stops beating. Something heavy was placed on her, perhaps to facilitate her death or to keep her body from convulsing.”
A horrific thought came to Carina. “Could the killer have laid on top of her?” (48-49)
Now let’s fast forward to after the hero, Nick Thomas, has arrived, and they’re talking with a psychiatrist, who also happens to be Carina’s brother:
Nick interrupted and tapped the coroner’s report. “Dr. Kincaid, what do you make of the subdermal bruising on her torso? The coroner indicated that the marks came minutes before death.”
“You noticed that, too? What’s your guess?”
Nick shifted uneasily in his chair. “I hope I’m wrong, but I don’t think so. He laid on top of her while she died.”
Duncan nodded soberly. “I concur.” (149)
It’s like when Nick said it, it was a “Eureka” moment. Never mind that she’d already come to that conclusion. The hero arrives and the heroine immediately loses 50 IQ points. She just sits around listening to the men make the deductions while she stares at his hot bod and imagines him wearing nothing but his cowboy hat. The only intelligent thing to come out of her mouth concerning the case after his arrival has to do with the trophies the killer takes from his victims.
I liked this book well enough that I’ll be reading the next one, See No Evil, but I just can’t make myself give it a higher rating.
Rating: 2.75 out of 5 stars
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