Seven days after being abducted, the body of a twenty-year-old woman is found on a green patch of grass by the Los Angeles International Airport.

She has been left with her limbs stretched out and spread apart, placing her in a five-point human star. The autopsy reveals that she had been murdered in a most terrible way. But the surprises don’t end there.

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Detective Robert Hunter, who leads LAPD’s Special Section, Ultra Violent Unit, is assigned the case. But almost immediately a second body turns up. Hunter knows he has to be quick.

Surrounded by new challenges as every day passes, Detective Hunter finds himself chasing a monster. A predator whose past hides a terrible secret, whose desire to hurt people and thirst for murder can never be quenched – for he is DEATH.

My Review

Welcome to post number seven on this fab #blogathon. I will be reviewing one book per month.

Carlos Garcia is back for I Am Death (he wasn’t in the previous book), the seventh outing in the Detective Robert Hunter series and they just get better, though An Evil Mind will take some beating.

The first murder is terrible, the second probably one of the worst in all the books I’ve read so far, while the third is very Jack the Ripper. That’s all I’m saying. But what makes it worse (one in particular) is that we have got to know the victim and admired her strength, and her determination to overcome her terrible childhood. She really didn’t deserve what happened to her. Not that any of the victims do. But the back stories are becoming more elaborate with each book, I know I said something similar after reading An Evil Mind.

I will say that I did guess one of the twists quite early on, though the changing timelines made me doubt my instincts at times. It didn’t make any difference to my enjoyment of the book though – if enjoyment is the right word – it’s more about the (evil, sadistic) journey than the destination in I Am Death and that’s fine by me.

When you read a news story, and someone dies in a fire, you are often told that the smoke will have killed them first, so they didn’t suffer. With a Chris Carter novel, it’s the opposite. There’s no ‘they were dead already when they were being carved up’. It’s ‘oh yes they were still conscious while watching their own hands and feet being chopped off, and being skinned alive’. But that’s the nature of the beast. No-one ever said these novels are for the faint-hearted.

I’m not a romance fan in general, but please let Robert have a relationship. I think he’s lonely and needs more than a one night stand. Occasionally we think he’s found a kindred soul, but they either get killed or it just fizzles out. He needs a strong career woman who understands him.

Many thanks to @Tr4cyF3nt0n for inviting me to be part of the #CompulsiveReaders #blogathon.

About the Author

Born in Brazil of Italian origin, Chris Carter studied psychology and criminal behaviour at the University of Michigan. As a member of the Michigan State District Attorney’s Criminal Psychology team, he interviewed and studied many criminals, including serial and multiple homicide offenders with life imprisonment convictions. He now lives in London. Visit his website www.chriscarterbooks.com