Entertaining - Rated 
First one of This guys books, but after reading it I'll be looking to go back to the start of the series.
Found it very entertaining with some imaginative ideas that were convincing and grabbed your attention. The characters were well written and you could travel with them through the story immediately... I didn't even realise this was part of a series of books with the same character until I was almost at the end and went looking for more of the authors books... It stands up great on its own.
Overall very enjoyable and everything I needed out of a thriller.
Blood Brother - J A Kerley - Rated
Having real all of the Carson Ryder series, I felt that Blood Brother didn't quite come up to the standard of the previous novels.
Kerley's plots are always dark and chilling ones and this is no exception plus there is the twist of Ryder's world closing in when it is about to be found out that Jeremy Ridgecliff is his brother.
This is fast paced and I enjoy Kerley's style of writing. He makes the writing of dialogue seem effortless and it flows with a realistic sense.
For me, I could guess what was coming next too long before it happened, I didn't believe in Jeremy's abilities to spot others who he could use to his advantage and the insight into Carson and Jeremy's childhood took something away from Jeremy's character.
why do you read a novel? - Rated 
This was my first Kerley book and I loved the whole intelligent female cop deferring to the dorkie, out of towner plod - male fantasy and he gets paid for it! Come on, it's not earth changing stuff.
I actually liked the two main male police characters and there were a good number of twists and turns in the relationship areas, and if one ignored the relationship elephant in the room then this is a good, light read.
Not surprisingly he doesn't do women characters well, so if you expect realism in relationships - don't go here.
The obviousness of some of the upcoming events didn't spoil the book for me as Kerley writes easily, you want to hear him out.
The ending was somewhat abrupt but I imagine his agent left it for another book coming along in the pipeline. Well I would buy it.
Hasn't Grabbed me Yet - Rated 
I got as far as reading the first two chapters and then I've drifted into reading other material. So classic problem of not grabbing readers attention at start doesn't bode well for rest of novel.
Twisting plot, entertaining thriller - Rated
Carson Ryder, a cop from the Southern USA, has been summoned to New York to help investigate the particularly nasty murder of a leading female psychiatrist. Most of the NY cops despise him as a Southern "hick", and take no trouble to hide it. So it's just as well that they don't know his dark secret - how close he really is to the insane killer who is now on the loose. Quickly, there are more bodies and things start to get rather complicated for Carson. Kerley does a good job of leading you up the garden path, so that each twist in the plot really does come as a big surprise. My one criticism is that the author is a bit heavy handed with the "Southern speak" of his hero, and that did grate on me for a while. But either he lightened up, or I got used to it, because I soon stopped noticing. I really liked this book, despite the nasty bits - I'm squeamish. So if this genre is your thing, I can't see any reason why you wouldn't enjoy it too.
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