The Kill Club

October 14, 2019
Jasmine “Jazz” Benavides, the narrator of this uneven noir thriller set in L.A. from Heard (Hunting Annabelle), loves her 13-year-old brother, Joaquin Coleman, and sees him as often as possible, despite her volatile relationship with his controlling adoptive mother, Carol Coleman, who also raised Jazz after the death of their mother. A religious fanatic, Carol often refuses Joaquin his lifesaving diabetic medicine, keeps him out of school, and locks him in his room with no way to escape, all before disappearing with the boy without a trace. An anonymous caller offers Jazz a “permanent solution”: murder a stranger who may be a drug dealer, rapist, or an abuser—and, in turn, someone will murder Carol. As Jazz weighs the moral ramifications, she learns that such murders, dubbed the Blackbird Killings by the police, have been going on for a while. The loving relationship between Jazz and book-smart Joaquin adds realism, as does the background of their connection. The clever finale makes up in part for an unbelievable villain and an unwieldy center that substitutes violence for real storytelling. Fans of Stranger on the Train scenarios will find much to like. Agent: Lauren Spieller, Triada US Literary.

December 1, 2019

Jazz knows her diabetic 13-year-old brother Joaquin is desperate for insulin. Growing up in foster care was brutal, and now that she is on her own and their dogmatic foster mother, Carol, has adopted Joaquin, Jazz no longer has access to him. She's thwarted at every legal turn, so when an anonymous caller suggests that Carol can be made to disappear, her desperate love for Joaquin sets off a frantic chain of events. All Jazz needs to do is kill someone in order for Carol to be killed. As the bodies accumulate, the stymied police see no connection between the murders dubbed the Blackbird killings. When the murder Jazz plans fails, she must run from the police and the merciless mastermind behind the attacks. Then Joaquin disappears. VERDICT Heard (Hunting Annabelle) offers an exhilarating plot of quid pro quo. Biracial Jazz is a scrappy boxer, loyal to friends and family, who only wants to offer her smart younger brother a chance to make it in life. This dark suspense is a fine addition to LGBTQ and multicultural collections.--Gloria Drake, Oswego P.L. Dist., IL

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 15, 2019
In Heard's sophomore thriller (Hunting Annabelle, 2018), a desperate woman at the end of her rope is drawn into an intriguing, but deadly, scheme. Twenty-eight-year-old Jasmine "Jazz" Benavides has had enough of her ex-foster mother, Carol. Jazz moved out a while back and barely makes ends meet stocking supermarket shelves in between gigs with her band. Her 13-year-old brother, Joaquin Coleman, still lives with the uber-religious and physically abusive Carol, who is actually his adoptive mother. That and Jazz's criminal record are the reasons that Jazz has been unsuccessful in getting the diabetic Joaquin away from a woman who speaks in tongues and denies him his insulin because she believes God will heal him. When Jazz must literally break into Carol's house to deliver his medicine, things come to a head, and Carol beats Jazz with a baseball bat. A solution to the Carol problem comes in the form of a phone call from a blocked number. The mysterious caller will make Carol go away for good, but Jazz will have to kill someone else in return. Like pay it forward but with a syringe loaded with deadly poison. The caller explains that the overarching mission is to bring justice to those who were robbed of it by a broken system. With Joaquin's life on the line, Jazz doesn't hesitate for long, but when she fails to take down her target, all hell breaks loose. The LAPD is frantically investigating the deaths they've dubbed the Blackbird killings, and Jazz is running out of time. The scrappy Jazz can kick ass with the best of them, but the Blackbird killer, who pulls all the strings, seems to have eyes and ears everywhere, and to complicate things, Jazz is falling for Sofia Russo, the sultry assistant principal of Joaquin's school, who's dealing with her own problems. Heard expertly blends nearly nonstop thrills and some genuinely surprising twists with spot-on social commentary that makes an impact without getting preachy. Just try to put this one down.

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