In for the Kill

By: John Lutz

Narrated by: Scott Brick

Length: 13 hrs and 48 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.

5 of 5 people found this review helpful

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!

5 of 5 people found this review helpful

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.

4 of 4 people found this review helpful

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.

3 of 3 people found this review helpful

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.

5 of 6 people found this review helpful

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.

2 of 3 people found this review helpful

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.

6 of 11 people found this review helpful

Always great

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

good book

great book, wonderful story, very detailed until the end then it seems like he rushed to finish. the detail was great in the end everything happens in like 2 chapters

OK

This is the second time that I have order and read a Lutz novel. This is not something that I have consciously done because the books are so good. It has been because the material is not memorable that I keep picking up the same thing. Therefore I am writing a review to make a record for me.

Based on the repeat purchase the books are nothing extraordinary and I need to stop trying to find what the "it" is about Lutz novels. The crimes are original, brutal and gripping. The the characters have a tendency to a lot of self diagnose about past cases or their life situations than solving the crime. As police, you find their ruminations to be the typical problems of a cop life; obsessed with cases, late nights, moody and emotional stunned.

The Frank Quinn team seem to all be maladjusted individuals who make irrational, and dangerous decisions base more on their maladie. Since I find the summaries of the Quinn novels are interesting but the books are unmemorable this is the last Lutz novel.

This one is basically an boy who had a unusually murderous example of a parent and of course grows to emulate their past. The killer, as usual, has a high degree of intelligence who is able to confound and elude our number one detective team. There is a twist something we nor the detective team would even consider. If this is your first Quinn novel give it a try. I would not try a second Quinn. You will have to endure hours of his past life.