Necessary Evil (Sentinels of Babylon, #1)

by Jamie K Schmidt

[chymerra]

Ok, normally I don’t complain about covers or blurbs that describe the book. I actually make it a point not to because there is a reason why the author chose the cover or the publisher wrote the blurb the way they did. But this time, I have to say something.

The guy on the cover does not match up to what the author wrote. See, Evan (aka Evil) has a beard, which was mentioned quite often in the book, and a huge tattoo of a spider on his chest, which was mentioned a few times because of Lucy’s extreme phobia of spiders. So I wasn’t exactly thrilled about the cover and if I had to suggest one thing to the author….change it. Get some awesome tatted hunk to pose for the cover and then put a huge spider tattoo on his chest. Seriously, just do it!!

Now onto the blurb. While some of it stays true to what the story is about but the bit about Lucy’s brother isn’t exactly true. He is suspected of murdering two people, not off on a technicality. Actually, he hadn’t been in jail for 5 years and lived out in CA before coming to NY to escape a psycho ex girlfriend (or so he says). The suspicion of murder comes after he moves to NY. There is one person in the book who did get off on a technicality. They must have mixed them up.

I actually liked Evil, a lot. While I don’t agree with vigilante’s, I can definitely see where he, Warden, Sentential, Ryder and the Judge are coming from. Evil is a retired homicide detective, Warden a retired prison guard, Sentential a retired Special Forces and Ryder retired CIA operative. They all have seen the worst of humanity and they all have seen obviously guilty people walk when they should have stayed in jail. Unfortunately, our justice system is flawed and it happens all the time.

Lucy, I was a little more on the face about. While she rocked at being a public defender, she sucked at her personal life (seriously). She supported her brother and made excuses for him. “He got picked up for everything because people automatically assumed he did it because our father went to jail” was the main excuse that she used and it made me want to smack her. Listen, I knew exactly where she was coming from. Having someone who you can’t trust or who is draining you dry of all your money is awful and that’s all I am going to say.

The slow burn, at first, between her and Evil was delicious. Instead of instantly falling into InstaLove/InstaLust, the author made them have a 2 year history of wanting each other. And when they finally do give in (she went down on Evil in his bar), it is explosive and oh so good!!

I was a little put off, though, by the amount of violence in the book. Also, I felt that while it was patterned after MC books, it wasn’t a full MC book. Basically, it was just 4 friends who are sick of the justice system and take matters into their own hands that happen to ride motorcycles. Also, there was a couple of loose ends. The slimy lawyer…what happened to him after the SOB’s visited him? And the storyline with the Pyros….it just disappeared after Lucy’s car got torched and the SOB’s took revenge.

The sub story involving her brother was sad and the ending to that was awful. I felt bad for Evil to be put in that situation and for Lucy to have to be in it (want to know what happened? Read the book!)

The ending was not what I expected and I cried.