A Righteous Kill by Kerrigan Byrne (The Shakespearean Suspense #1)
Released: October 2013
Romantic Suspense
Self Published

Reviewed by Mandi

I don’t read a ton of romantic suspense because I have a hard time finding books in this genre that work for me. But this review request came along and I decided to try it, and I couldn’t put my Kindle down. This book has a great blend of creepy suspense, a gruff, sexy hero, an adorable heroine and dirty sex. Let’s get to it.

A serial killer, nicknamed John the Baptist has killed six red-headed women, nailing them to a cross and letting them bleed out and drown in a river. But his next attempt will fail. Our heroine Hero (her and all her siblings have unique Shakespeare names) survives the attack, and is able to give a few details to the FBI agent in charge of the case, Luca Ramirez. After much recovery, Hero heads back to her apartment only to find a menacing note and a goat head in her refrigerator. John the Baptist isn’t done with her yet, and Luca, under the guise of being her boyfriend, moves in to protect her.

That is a very brief set-up of this book. But let’s get to the good stuff, yes? Some points I want to make:

1. Luca is a grumpy, gruff, intense FBI agent. I love a well done grumpy hero and Luca fits it perfectly. He has demons, sometimes wondering if he has just as much darkness on the inside as the serial killer. Hero is his light, the woman who can crack his façade and make him feel. While he is very professional and devotes every minute of every day to tracking down this killer, he also has to be with her all of the time to keep her safe. It’s hard on his nerves.

During a simple dinner conversation.

“So what are you in the mood for?” Hero asked from the table.

Was she kidding? Even if she offered what he knew she wasn’t offering, Luca wouldn’t have been able to decide. Naked. He was in the mood for naked, hard, and wild. And that was a fucking dangerous mood.

For all of his fight, each day he gets one step closer to losing control around her. When he has her amazing coffee:

Hero took another sip. “It’s my special blend. I usually reserve it for the morning after.”

Luca almost dropped his mug. Some coffee sloshed onto his map. “Morning after?”

“Well yeah, I like to leave someone with a good taste in their mouth, you know?”

Heat that had nothing to do with the coffee scalded his insides. If this was the morning after coffee, then then night before really must be—.

And finally, he makes Hero a promise:

“I vow on this holy ground that when this is all over, I’m going to bend you over the first available surface and fuck you sideways. Got it?”

Hero blinked. The carnal words and the hard tone didn’t match his callous voice at all, causing her to question what she’d just heard. Had he just said…?

“Wait. W-what?” she stammered.

“You heard me. Now get out of the car, we’re going to church.”

2. Hero is an adorable heroine. She is definitely scared about the serial killer stalking her and takes it very seriously. But she also provides some lightness to this story. She is a very confident person, somewhat a hippie, an artist, and can’t understand why her body wants Luca so much. When she first wakes up from her attack in the hospital she is high on pain killers and she made me laugh. She continued to make me laugh, smile and fall in love with her the entire book.

She falls for Luca right away:

God, she was going to sculpt him naked someday. And, if he didn’t let her see him naked? She’d just have to use her imagination, her very vivid imagination. She was probably going to try to get him naked, though.

She knows Luca is into her, and gives him a very hard time about it.

Luca looked up from his report, but his eyes snagged on her lips closing over the chopsticks.

She drew them out slowly. Just because. Then licked them.

And for all of her joking around with him, she really wants him to do dirty things with her.

She wanted him to fuck her wearing that gun. She wanted him like this. On the edge of his control, wild and angry and afraid. She wanted him to pull out the erection pulsing against her stomach and slam it into her without even bothering to take his pants off. She wanted his belt to bite into her skin whiles she watched his wide shoulders to strain against the leather of his holster.

She wanted it right now.

Oh naughty Hero!

3. Besides all the wonderful sexual tension, we actually get a great suspense too. John the Baptist stalks Hero the entire book. The author gives you many people that it could be, and the last quarter of the book I was so excited to find out which one it actually was.

4. Hero has a very large family and I loved all of them. Her sister is fun and her brothers are all very protective, intense and each one is set up with a background. Knox’s book is next and I can’t wait.

This is a new to me author. Looking at her website, her previous book have been historicals (which I might have to check out). In any case, I’m very excited for another book in this world. If you like romantic suspense, I’d definitely give this one a try.

Rating: B+

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