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The Lynleys of Law Enforcement #2
Christmas Lights Killer
Home for the holidays
And on the trail of a killer…
After his missing niece turns up dead, state trooper Hamilton McCade joins the hunt for her murderer. Working the case with Detective Annette Lynley, they quickly discover there’s a serial killer in their town. With Christmas just around the corner, and the attraction between them heating up, Annette becomes a target. But Hamilton won’t let this monster hurt another woman he loves…
And on the trail of a killer…
After his missing niece turns up dead, state trooper Hamilton McCade joins the hunt for her murderer. Working the case with Detective Annette Lynley, they quickly discover there’s a serial killer in their town. With Christmas just around the corner, and the attraction between them heating up, Annette becomes a target. But Hamilton won’t let this monster hurt another woman he loves…
- GenresRomantic SuspenseRomance
211 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 12, 2023
26 people are currently reading
37 people want to read
About the author
R. Barri Flowers
260 books97 followersR. Barri Flowers is an award-winning criminologist and bestselling author of romantic suspense, crime and thriller fiction, crime nonfiction and true crime, relationship novels, young adult mysteries, and children's books.
The author is a member of the International Thriller Writers,
The author is a member of the International Thriller Writers,
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
December 19, 2025
Oh. My. LAWD.
This was awful. Why did the author feel the need to describe the guns in such detail? And all of the clothing and hairstyles… All of the unnecessary detail. I’m all about painting a visual, but this was over the top.
Then let’s get to the love scenes. I literally laughed so loud at how bad they were, I woke my husband up. Why are we merging?! Why is a woman shouting, “Let’s come together —now” in bed?? and she ain’t talking about the grand finale. She’s just talking about getting it started after a little play lol. Some of the worst descriptions of love making I’ve ever read.
Do yourself a favor and skip this.
This was awful. Why did the author feel the need to describe the guns in such detail? And all of the clothing and hairstyles… All of the unnecessary detail. I’m all about painting a visual, but this was over the top.
Then let’s get to the love scenes. I literally laughed so loud at how bad they were, I woke my husband up. Why are we merging?! Why is a woman shouting, “Let’s come together —now” in bed?? and she ain’t talking about the grand finale. She’s just talking about getting it started after a little play lol. Some of the worst descriptions of love making I’ve ever read.
Do yourself a favor and skip this.
March 7, 2024
Hero: Hamilton McCade, 36 years old white man, state trooper.
Heroine: Annette Linley, 34 years old biracial woman. She’s not reference to as being black. Her mother gave her up for adoption and she was adopted by a white family that already had 3 children, 2 boys and a girl.
The models and the hero and heroine in the book doesn’t match. I know that an author is not going to really match the people on the book, but the hero in the book is said to have a military hair cut. The hero model doesn’t. Annette is said to be biracial and the model heroine could be biracial, because a mixed black person can come out looking white, biracial or even a shade of brown, Looking at the woman on the cover, I wouldn’t have said she was biracial.
In my 30+ years of reading this is the first book that I have read where the heroine was called biracial. To be fair, if someone is biracial, they should be called biracial, but so many that’s mixed with black and white, they go by black, because of their skin color. In this book, Annette doesn’t calls herself black unless I’ve missed that part. The author R. Barri Flowers even calls her biracial on more than one occasion. When Hamilton first say her it was noted that he was seeing a biracial woman.
This story is about a crazy man going around killing with by strangling them with christmas lights. What made Hamilton and Annette cross path is because his only and older sister Maureen went reported to Annette that her 21 year old daughter Juliet was missing and since it wasn’t 24 hours since Juliet been missing, Annette couldn’t jump on the case right there. What I didn’t like is when Hamilton found out that his niece was dead, he went to Annette’s station and wanted to make sure that she looked for his niece, because he wanted his sister to know that the police cared about finding her daughter and not just sweep the case under the rug.
The next day after Juliet was reported missing, her body was found in the trunk of her car. Prior to getting killed the night before, she was heading to meet up with a female friend, but somehow the christmas light killer intervened and killed her.
I didn’t see any chemistry between Hamilton and Annette. I know that Harlequin stories be rushed and some other books tends to rush their endings. I can’t stand a rushed story or even when a hero and heroine don’t have chemistry. They are just thrown together, because they are the hero and heroine.
Hamilton was assigned to work with Annette and Will. He wanted to be a detective and was hoping to become a detective one day which he does towards the end of the story.
What is strange about the hunting for the christmas lights killer, Hamilton and Annette started thinking about how it would feel to be with one another and to have kids and this happened before they even went on a date. Hello, they haven’t even known each other long. Hamilton’s niece was killed and beside trying to find the killer, he was trying to see how he could get with Annette. Even his sister Maureen had a man in her life that he didn’t even know about until after his niece’s funeral. The man was a co-worker of hers. Maureen wanted to introduced her boyfriend to Hamilton and let him know that she was going to be spending the holiday with him. Hamilton thought that the boyfriend could have been the one that killed his niece, but that was resolved quickly. The man was at worked when Juliet was killed and plus, he liked Juliet and wouldn’t have hurt her.
I believe in love at first sight, but Annette and Hamilton’s story doesn’t fit the love at first sight that I believe in.
It was very predictable that the christmas lights killer would go after Annette and he did. She inquired why he was killing woman and he told her because his girlfriend dumped him last December by leaving him a note attached to the string of their christmas light on their tree letting him know that she’s moving on with the Australian man she met on a dating site. Annette asked him why he just didn’t go after his ex and he told her that he planned on going to Australia to kill her as well, after he killed her.
The christmas lights kill whose name is Cardwell is killed by Annette’s partner Will. He and Hamilton knew each other way before Annette met Hamilton.
After only knowing Annette for a few days, Hamilton asked her to marry him and she said yes. Annette and her siblings were meeting up for the holidays at the place their parents, who were killed in a car crash have left them. She introduces Hamilton to her sibling as her fiancé. Yes, while talking to her sister about the case, her sister picked up on her liking Hamilton and her brothers eventually picked that up as well, still I would be kind of skeptical that after knowing my sister for a few days, you asked her to marry you. This story took back in a few days.
Heroine: Annette Linley, 34 years old biracial woman. She’s not reference to as being black. Her mother gave her up for adoption and she was adopted by a white family that already had 3 children, 2 boys and a girl.
The models and the hero and heroine in the book doesn’t match. I know that an author is not going to really match the people on the book, but the hero in the book is said to have a military hair cut. The hero model doesn’t. Annette is said to be biracial and the model heroine could be biracial, because a mixed black person can come out looking white, biracial or even a shade of brown, Looking at the woman on the cover, I wouldn’t have said she was biracial.
In my 30+ years of reading this is the first book that I have read where the heroine was called biracial. To be fair, if someone is biracial, they should be called biracial, but so many that’s mixed with black and white, they go by black, because of their skin color. In this book, Annette doesn’t calls herself black unless I’ve missed that part. The author R. Barri Flowers even calls her biracial on more than one occasion. When Hamilton first say her it was noted that he was seeing a biracial woman.
This story is about a crazy man going around killing with by strangling them with christmas lights. What made Hamilton and Annette cross path is because his only and older sister Maureen went reported to Annette that her 21 year old daughter Juliet was missing and since it wasn’t 24 hours since Juliet been missing, Annette couldn’t jump on the case right there. What I didn’t like is when Hamilton found out that his niece was dead, he went to Annette’s station and wanted to make sure that she looked for his niece, because he wanted his sister to know that the police cared about finding her daughter and not just sweep the case under the rug.
The next day after Juliet was reported missing, her body was found in the trunk of her car. Prior to getting killed the night before, she was heading to meet up with a female friend, but somehow the christmas light killer intervened and killed her.
I didn’t see any chemistry between Hamilton and Annette. I know that Harlequin stories be rushed and some other books tends to rush their endings. I can’t stand a rushed story or even when a hero and heroine don’t have chemistry. They are just thrown together, because they are the hero and heroine.
Hamilton was assigned to work with Annette and Will. He wanted to be a detective and was hoping to become a detective one day which he does towards the end of the story.
What is strange about the hunting for the christmas lights killer, Hamilton and Annette started thinking about how it would feel to be with one another and to have kids and this happened before they even went on a date. Hello, they haven’t even known each other long. Hamilton’s niece was killed and beside trying to find the killer, he was trying to see how he could get with Annette. Even his sister Maureen had a man in her life that he didn’t even know about until after his niece’s funeral. The man was a co-worker of hers. Maureen wanted to introduced her boyfriend to Hamilton and let him know that she was going to be spending the holiday with him. Hamilton thought that the boyfriend could have been the one that killed his niece, but that was resolved quickly. The man was at worked when Juliet was killed and plus, he liked Juliet and wouldn’t have hurt her.
I believe in love at first sight, but Annette and Hamilton’s story doesn’t fit the love at first sight that I believe in.
It was very predictable that the christmas lights killer would go after Annette and he did. She inquired why he was killing woman and he told her because his girlfriend dumped him last December by leaving him a note attached to the string of their christmas light on their tree letting him know that she’s moving on with the Australian man she met on a dating site. Annette asked him why he just didn’t go after his ex and he told her that he planned on going to Australia to kill her as well, after he killed her.
The christmas lights kill whose name is Cardwell is killed by Annette’s partner Will. He and Hamilton knew each other way before Annette met Hamilton.
After only knowing Annette for a few days, Hamilton asked her to marry him and she said yes. Annette and her siblings were meeting up for the holidays at the place their parents, who were killed in a car crash have left them. She introduces Hamilton to her sibling as her fiancé. Yes, while talking to her sister about the case, her sister picked up on her liking Hamilton and her brothers eventually picked that up as well, still I would be kind of skeptical that after knowing my sister for a few days, you asked her to marry you. This story took back in a few days.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 28, 2023
I thought knowing about his niece's murder would have taken priorty but after a day or so had passed after identifying her body, he was thinking that he wished he could share his home with someone.
They both quickly jumped on the romance bandwagon and here I had assumed that romance would actually take a backseat in this book.
In chapter 7 they were busy having dinner and romantic thoughts about each other,talking about past relationships and kissing.
I checked out by this time.
They both quickly jumped on the romance bandwagon and here I had assumed that romance would actually take a backseat in this book.
In chapter 7 they were busy having dinner and romantic thoughts about each other,talking about past relationships and kissing.
I checked out by this time.
December 29, 2023
I have now read two books in this series and honestly suggest skipping them. While the storyline is interesting, the romance is unrealistic and the author perpetuates the false information that DNA results come back in a few hours. And as noted by others, she often repeats information and has a weird fascination for describing hair styles, clothes and cars - none of which actually contribute to the story. I’m only reading the books because they come with the Harlequin Intrigue subscription.
April 22, 2024
Atrocious dialogue aside, the book is better then most Harlequin books manly because it's more of a murder mystery then a book about two losers in love. Though the character of Hamilton gets over his niece's death far to soon and uses it as a stepping stone to bed Annette.
Read
October 2, 2023Romantic Suspense, Multicultural & Interracial Romance, Police Procedural Mystery & Detective
Miniseries
The Lynleys of Law Enforcement (Book #2)
Miniseries
The Lynleys of Law Enforcement (Book #2)
Read
October 2, 2023Romantic Suspense, Multicultural & Interracial Romance, Police Procedural Mystery & Detective
Miniseries
The Lynleys of Law Enforcement (Book #2)
Miniseries
The Lynleys of Law Enforcement (Book #2)
October 21, 2023
Awesome, fun, riveting insight into solid police work. Non stop action until the end, had to sit in the car and finish.
October 31, 2023
Quick easy read.
December 31, 2023
The story moved at a good pace. Hearing each new characters hair style took me out of the story. The romance moved super fast. There was no mourning the murdered niece. A fair read.
February 5, 2024
I enjoyed reading Hamilton and Annette's story
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews