A Perfect Evil
Crime, Mystery, Thriller
Alex Kava
Maggie O'Dell, Book # 1
Harlequin Mira
June 17th 2000
ebook
400
English
March 19, 2019 March 22, 2019
The brutal murders of three young boys paralyze the citizens of Platte City, Nebraska. What's worse is the grim realization that the man recently executed for the crimes was a copycat. When Sheriff Nick Morrelli is called to the scene of another grisly murder, it becomes clear that the real predator is still at large, waiting to kill again.
Morrelli understands the urgency of the case terrorizing his community, but it's the experienced eye of FBI criminal profiler Maggie O'Dell that pinpoints the true nature of the evil behind the killings--a revelation made all the more horrific when Morrelli's own nephew goes missing.
Maggie understands something else: the killer is enjoying himself, relishing his ability to stay one step ahead of her, making this case more personal by the hour. Because out there, watching, is a killer with a heart of pure and perfect evil.
First book in the series dedicated to Meggie O’Dell, an FBI expert in profiling. In this book we are in Nebraska, in a small town near Omaha where the body of a missing child is found near a river. The murder resembles the one of three children, that took place six years earlier. The problem? Someone has already paid for those murders, in fact he was executed a few months earlier. Copycat or is there something more underneath?
I have conflicted feelings about this book. On one hand, I really liked the case, on the other the characters not so much. And the ending. Although not really, now I explain.
First of all there is a priest who knows who the murderer is (or rather, someone confessed to the murders by confession and we know this from the first chapter, so I’m not revealing anything to you), but he doesn’t say anything because of confessional secret. His silence costs the lives of two children. Does this seem logical to you? Is it better to break the confessional secret when it comes to murder and saving children or letting them die? I don’t understand certain things of this religion and I’m Catholic.
Second, about three quarters in, I started to feel the reading of the book a little too heavy. As I said, I like the case but the characters are disgusting. I know that if these facts that I don’t like didn’t exist, there would be no story, but is it possible that Christine (the sheriff’s sister) must be the idiot of the moment and suffer the advances of a policeman like that? Also, after what that policeman told her and did, she gets in the car with him when her father orders her to drive her home? But I would walk for 20 kilometers instead of that. The book is dated, I know, so many things are outdated now so it’s a bit my fault that I’m reading a book set almost a century ago (okay in 2000 but from the behavior of certain people it seems the Middle Ages… and we’re in America).
And the story between Maggie and Nick (the sheriff)… unbearable. Their story takes away only time from the case, stretches the book too much and is out of place.
Who was the murderer was obvious from the beginning despite the misdirection. When the first killer who was later executed was arrested, something went wrong and it was easy to guess what really happened and who was guilty.
Now the ending… I expected it to be an open ending, but when this happens it always leaves me with a bitter taste in my mouth… I know it’s unfinished. I know that I still have many books to read in the series, however, I don’t know… I am always stunned when a book does not end well.
However I will continue with the series, the “criminal” part is very interesting, but I hope the characters will improve as they go along. I like the short chapters that the author uses, I like the chapters in which the killer speaks or remembers and I like the case, so I must say that I read the first three quarters of the book all in one go and I hope to find the same structure in the next books.
