The Killing Kind, Chris F. Holm
Received to review via Netgalley

I was excited to get this ARC. I loved Holm’s Collector series, and though this goes more into the detective line and away from the fantastical aspects that got me into it, I still love Holm’s writing, and I love the concept. I don’t know if this is meant to become a series or something — there’s room for it, given the ending, but it would be awkward to put the emotional punch into it. The main character is already a ghost, cut off from family and friends: there’s basically only two people he cares for, and by the end of this book, one of them is dead and the other is going into witness protection where she should, in theory, be safe.

Still, if Holm decides to write more, I trust him to do it well. There’s a redemption plot here, after all: Hendricks is killing hitmen with the eventual goal of redemption. When exactly he might reach that, I don’t think the character knows.

Anyway, this has slick writing, with just the right levels of detail. I love that it has some queer characters, too, just casually in with the rest because that’s how it works. I felt like I knew what was coming a little too often at the end, but maybe that’s just in comparison to mysteries where the end is deliberately from out of nowhere.

Rating: 4/5