"If you want to see your daughter alive again, listen carefully."
When the body of a snatched schoolgirl is found in an abandoned biosciences building, the case is first treated as a kidnapping gone wrong.
But Detective Kay Hunter isn't convinced, especially when a man is found dead with the ransom money still in his possession.
When a second schoolgirl is taken, Kay's worst fears are realised.
With her career in jeopardy and desperate to conceal a disturbing secret, Kay's hunt for the killer becomes a race against time before he claims another life.
For the killer, the game has only just begun...
Scared to Death is a gripping fast paced crime thriller from author Rachel Amphlett, and the first book in a series introducing Kay Hunter - a detective with a hidden past and an uncertain future.
This seems to have a lot of rave reviews and I'm not really sure why. It's not the worst book I've read - but it's definitely not the best.
The cast of characters are lacklustre and have no depth and could be swapped out with any generic group. I had no emotional connection with them good or bad - they were just bland. The mystery itself was decent but it was clumsily written. Half the time the cops interviewed the suspect they were done with one question. The information they had seemed to fall into their hands. And the mystery had pacing issues and stretched for way too long. And it bothered me the whole money aspect Bob mentions went nowhere. A decent editor could rework this into a stronger read but in it's current form, 2 stars. I may pick up the next one in the series depending on price and availability.
