Eleven Rooms. Ten Bodies. One Empty Grave.

When Brandon Fisher joined the FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit, he knew he’d come up against psychopaths, sociopaths, pathological liars, and more. But when his first case takes him and the team to Salt Lick, Kentucky, to hunt down a ritualistic serial killer, he learns what nightmares are truly made of.

Beneath a residential property, local law enforcement discovered an underground bunker with circular graves that house the remains of ten victims. But that’s not all: there’s an empty eleventh grave, just waiting for a corpse. The killing clearly hasn’t come to an end yet, and with the property owner already behind bars, Brandon is certain there’s an apprentice who roams free.

As the FBI follows the evidence across the United States, Brandon starts to struggle with the deranged nature of his job description. And if the case itself isn’t going to be enough to push Brandon over the edge, he’s working in the shadow of Supervisory Special Agent Jack Harper, who expects nothing short of perfection from his team. To make matters even worse, it seems Brandon has become the target of a psychotic serial killer who wants to make him—or his wife—victim number eleven.

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You know, I pretty much failed in my reading goals for January. I thought I was off to such a good start reading two books back-to-back, and then there was nothing. Granted, I’ve been rather unwell, and January has brought hospital trips, more medication, and pain. So, slack given, I’m hoping for a better reading track in February.

I started reading this during my lunchbreaks, and to start, I was most bamboozled when I realised the main character was male. It’s written in first person, and it wasn’t until a fellow character uttered his full name that I realised he was, in fact, male. It didn’t sit well with me for a while, and thus it took me longer to get into the story I was reading. There is nothing bad about the main character being a male; the character’s presence just made more sense to me as a female.

I’m really not sure what I thought about this book; it’s left me rather undecided. On the one hand, I could see the ending coming a mile off; it was the expected ending, so it didn’t thrill me in any way. But on the other hand, the plot premise was interesting, and it was an interesting concept for a main character that isn’t fully formed to jump into.

There are, as expected, eleven bodies and a ‘race against time’ to prove the suspects murderous tendencies. Set in America, in Salt Lick, Kentucky, I have no idea if that is a real place or not. I got the same sense of arrogance as the BAU travelled to Kentucky, as I feel sometimes when I watch Criminal Minds. As I don’t live in America, I don’t know how realistic or fabricated the relationships between federal and state police are.

The book has strong religious and sinful themes. I wasn’t offended by it, but neither was I surprised by it. It felt generic. Crime and thriller books that involve religion already walk a tight line on a tightrope. I can understand that it’s hard to develop a truly unique plot around it but this one just seemed basic and borderline’safe’.

I think part of the problem with this book is that it felt like I was reading a TV program, and that kind of structure doesn’t read well with me.

The main character, Brandon Fisher, to be honest, at the beginning I thought he was a wet wimp. He grew on me, he clearly has the brains to be part of the team but there were aspects of his character that I didn’t gel with and his attitudes towards his boss were at times, almost cringe worthy.

I enjoyed the character of his boss, Jack, way more. He was an interesting character and there seemed to be a lot of depth to him. I was interested in his thoughts, interactions with the team, and overall presence and actions.

I think because the secondary characters were so fully formed and ready for action, it made Fisher stand out more for the wrong reasons. I’ve read other books by Arnold and not had this problem, so I’m leaning towards this just not being the right book for me.