The Kill Club
by Wendy Heard
Fiction / Thrillers / Psychological
368 pages
A haunting thriller about a woman who attempts to save her brother's life by making a dangerous pact with a network of vigilantes who've been hunting down the predators of Los Angeles.
Jazz can’t let her younger brother die.
Their foster mother Carol has always been fanatical, but with Jazz grown up and out of the house, Carol takes a dangerous turn that threatens thirteen-year-old Joaquin’s life. Over and over, child services fails to intervene, and Joaquin is running out of time.
Then Jazz gets a blocked call from someone offering a solution. There are others like her, people the law has failed. They’ve formed an underground network of “helpers,” each agreeing to murder the abuser of another. They're taking back their power and leaving a trail of bodies throughout Los Angeles—dubbed the Blackbird Killings. If Jazz joins them, they’ll take care of Carol for good.
All she has to do is kill a stranger.
Jazz soon learns there's more to fear than getting caught carrying out her assignment. The leader of the club has a zero tolerance policy for mistakes.
And the punishment for disobeying orders is death.
Favorite Quotes:
“Okay,” I say, and in that one word is contained an ocean of acceptance. This is where I am. This is what I’m doing.
I think about what the reporter said, that the people who have been killed have had records of stalking, domestic violence. It actually sounds like the voice on the phone is who they say they are. They invented a serial killer. The police are searching LA for a murderer that doesn’t exist.
I don’t know how I feel about this, morally. Is it bad to kill someone like Carol? Does she deserve the death sentence? Do I have any feelings about her being dead? … I remember the guy I saw die at Villains. I heard him scream. It’s definitely not painless. But then I remember Carol with her baseball bat crunching through my bones like glass, and I think, Good.
How is she so put-together at six in the morning? When I work early shifts at Trader Joe’s, I look like an orphan in a Christmas movie.
My Review:
This book was devilishly clever and fiendishly addictive, I was taut with tension and unable to put my Kindle down without deeply resenting the intrusion to my reading. The main character of Jasmine was deeply flawed and horribly unlucky, and though well-intentioned she was a total screw up in every arena. I cringed for her while simultaneously wanting to give her a smack to the back of the head. The storylines were highly active, heartbreaking, twisted, brutal, gripping, and fraught with tension with unexpected and greatly welcomed glints of snarky levity and sharply edged wit. This was my first exposure to the cunning storytelling of Wendy Heard and I was an instant fangirl, I greedily want to amass all her clever words.
About The Author
Wendy Heard, author of Hunting Annabelle, was born in San Francisco and has lived most of her life in Los Angeles. When not writing, she can be found hiking the Griffith Park trails, taking the Metro and then questioning this decision, and haunting local bookstores.
Twitter: @wendydheard
Instagram: @wendydheard
Facebook: @wendydheard
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