In for the Kill

By: John Lutz

Narrated by: Scott Brick

Length: 13 hrs and 49 mins

Publisher's Summary

Frank Quinn, the relentless detective who made his debut in John Lutz’s acclaimed thriller Darker Than Night, faces his toughest - and most personal - case yet...

An invitation written in blood...A madman is stalking women in the city. By the time his victims are found, they’ve been dismembered with careful precision, their limbs stacked into a gruesome pyramid and completely cleansed of every last drop of blood. 

To catch a killer - or die next....

Accustomed to working on the most grisly homicides, detective Frank Quinn’s nerves don’t rattle easily. But when the last names of the killer’s victims spell out “Q-u-i-n-n,” the veteran cop feels a chill run down his spine. Then a fresh victim is linked to the one woman Quinn can’t stop desiring. Hunting down killers is what Quinn does best. But this time, Quinn is up against a psychopath that will test him as never before....

©2007 John Lutz (P)2007 Books on Tape

Critic Reviews

"A very scary and suspenseful read." (Booklist)
"Lutz gives us further proof of his enormous talent for crafting great police fiction." (Publishers Weekly)

A great read

Some didn't like this book, but I am a huge John Lutz fan and this is one of his best in my opinion. The character Quinn is believable. Lutz has been around for a while and all of the books I have read so far are about retired cops coming out of retirement to work again. I am also a huge Michael Connelly fan (Harry Botch) and this is one of the reasons I like this author.

I always read reviews before downloading...

Some of the reviews for this book were not very flattering, but I took a chance on Scott Brick as the narrator. I thought it was a great book. Unlike some of the reviews, I found it very intriguing and easy to follow. Good "creepy" story!

Great Narrator

I enjoyed this mystery and the narrator was great. His voice sent chills up my spine more than once as the suspenseful parts. I've read Lutz other books and this one has them beat.

Enjoyable read

I will say I enjoyed this book and Scott Brick was amazing as usual. The relationship between mother and son was well developed. I would have liked to have seen Quinn do more to "catch the killer" instead of the killer simply falling from the sky. It seemed the book ran a bit out of steam at the end.

Super evil villain

I like John Sandford and this author is the closest to him that I've found. I couldn't decide between three and four stars and went with four as a result of great narration by Scott Brick. Some of the twists and turns of this novel were not believable but, hey, this is a work of fiction and we usually suspend reality when we listen to books in this genre. I thought the characters were interesting and the author made you care about some of them. How their lives crossed was a bit of a stretch and the conclusion of the book was somewhat anticlimactic. The author also could have mixed up Sherman's modus operandi a bit more. I've downloaded another book by Lutz and am hopeful that it garners four or five stars all by itself.

Autrocious

Would you try another book from John Lutz and/or Scott Brick?

Never

Would you ever listen to anything by John Lutz again?

Not in this lifetime

Would you be willing to try another one of Scott Brick’s performances?

Nope, his delivery reminded me of Arlo Guthrie doing Alice's Restaurant...Arlo was trying to be funny.

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

Disappointment and anger

Any additional comments?

This was an absolutely terrible book. I cannot understand how an editor in their right mind sent it to a publisher. I am not appalled by vivid descriptions of murders. I do get sick of the same unrealistic scenario being repeated in a book ad nauseum. Interesting imaginative characters, I really enjoy encountering in books. Illogical character development and wildly contrived plots just irritate me. Lutz had policemen behave in ways policemen never behave; a public defender claiming to working 'pro bona', a policewoman having an affair with a suspect; a father who hears that his daughter has met the suspect being more jealous than angry that his ex-lover had allowed that to happen. Horrible, horrible, horrible.

Tiresome

It's not clear what the intent of the author was in writing this book. Either he wanted to write a character study or had an editorial deadline and needed filler for his "mystery". There are endless ruminations by the characters that add nothing to the story and are so pointless that I eventually fast forwared through them. The detectives spend no time detecting but rather are inappropriate, obtuse and inept. An example is when the female detective becomes involved with a man who dated a dead woman. Her excuse for not being suspicious or investigating him is that would mean she is a cynic about men. When a man and woman present themselves as brother and mother to a killer, the lead detective does no investigation of them. He uses the mother as bait in a hotel room to catch the killer and when she asks for a shotgun, gives it to her. Even a civilian might wonder how safe that is.

It is a common albeit lazy method of plot advancement for a writer to make the bad guy omniscient and the good guy incompetent but in this book, the good guy never becomes competent. Nor does the writer.

Wow. Good book.

This was a really good serial killer book.

The Butcher was the perfect name for this guy.

Beware: There are detailed description of the killings.

I really like Quinn a lot. Pearl is fun sometimes, she can get annoying at times too.

The story line and plot were good. There is a lot of great dialogue throughout the book.

The narrator is fantastic! Scott Brick can do no wrong as far as I’m concerned.

Great plot, great writing, great narration

I really enjoyed the first Quinn book but I liked this second book in the series even better

Always great

Great again page turner and Scott Brick brings it to life with his amazing narration