My Five Word TL:DR Review: Liked Dexter? Check This Out

I enjoyed This GIrl’s a Killer, it’s an entertaining read with suspense and drama, the writing is really good and I certainly never experienced a dull moment.  I wouldn’t particularly class this as horror, well, there is of course a female out and about taking justice into her own hands and meting out punishment as she thinks fit – but the story isn’t really focused on the gore or bloodlust and there’s definitely some dark humour.

The killer in question is Cordelia Black.  Cordelia has reinvented herself over the years.  She’s now a successful pharmaceutical rep with a good reputation. she has her own found family (her best friend Diane and Diane’s daughter Samantha, who also happens to be Cordelia’s goddaughter).  By night she’s ridding the streets of monsters, men who prey on the innocent or unsuspecting.  She is always in complete control and plans everything with great care – until she doesn’t that is.

As the story starts Cordelia’s life takes a messy turn.  Diane has a new boyfriend and Cordelia has a bad feeling about him.  He also clearly doesn’t like Cordelia and the two soon find themselves in a competition to out fox each other whilst putting up a friendly front to keep Diane in the dark.  On top of this the increased number of missing men is leading the police to suspect they may have a serial killer at large.  Then couple this with the fact that Cordelia’s recent blind date was a police officer and things start to become very complicated.

What I liked about this.

I liked the friendship between Cordelia and Diane, they have a long history and Cordelia is clearly motivated to keep her BFF and her daughter safe from harm, there’s a slow reveal of Cordelia’s history in which you can discover how she became Cordelia Black.

The writing is good, very easy to get along with and the author also manages fairly quickly to create a situation that is tension packed.  Within short order, this cool, sophisticated and always in control woman is making terrible mistakes and finds herself with more than one dodgy companion sharing her home.

This is almost like (Cor)Delia as opposed to Dexter.  Obviously, it’s not the same story but the premise is very similar (in that Cordelia feels she is ridding the streets of dangerous predators and only acts when she’s absolutely certain of the facts), also the focus on dark humour and the fact that Cordelia seems to spend a good deal of the book living on the edge making bad choices and finding herself in an absolute pickle.  Clearly, there are some very dark themes here but the majority of Cordelia’s covert operations are carried out with the minimum of sensationalism and the real drama is all the headless chicken style scurrying about that she’s having to do as a result of her impulsive decisions.

I liked the characters but I wouldn’t say at this point that I love them.  In some respects I feel like I’m being told that Cordelia and Diane are best friends, there was a lot of repetitive thinking where Cordelia beats herself up about how, if she’s caught, she’s going to ruin their lives, and I totally see where’s she coming from but at the same time she takes some ridiculous risks and frankly behaves far too casually for someone who has so much to lose.  Cordelia supposedly plans, meticulously, but there’s little evidence of that here – which again feels a little like I’m being told rather than shown.  Everything turns into chaos within fairly short order – that being said though, even whilst this chaos feels frantic at the same time I kind of liked the crazy feel and the escalating tension it provoked.

Overall, I enjoyed this.  It’s not a serious thriller or an outright horror but it’s entertaining, easy to get along with and it definitely made me want to shake the MC on more than one occasion as she flipped from one almost catastrophe to the next.

I’m not sure if this is the start of a series but I would certainly be interested in reading more.

I received a copy through Netgalley, courtesy of the publisher, for which my thanks.  The above is my own opinion.

My rating 3.5 of 5 stars (rounded to 4)