Review of ‘Malevolent’
When an unidentified dead blonde is found in a Tampa parking lot with a brand on her hand, Tampa police Lieutenant Carl Kane is put on the case. He soon learns that they’re on the trail of a serial killer who is experimenting, and when they finally find a victim who hasn’t died, there’s a message for Kane, and the case becomes intensely personal. This is Malevolent by E. H. Reinhard.
An interesting book—written in two different points of view, first person when we’re in Kane’s head as he tracks the killer, and then in third person when we see the world as the killer sees it. Before reading Malevolent I would have dismissed this technique as gimmicky and probably impossible to effectively pull off. Reinhard surprised me, though—he did it. By the one-quarter mark in the book, I was no longer really noticing point of view—it just seemed natural.
A police procedural, it goes into a bit of detail on how the cops work: normal for the genre, and I assume accurate, having no knowledge of how Tampa PD works, but not so much that those of us who want to focus on clues and red herrings are turned off. It did not disappoint. I give it four stars.
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