Initial Kill

by Jana J.J. McGraw/ J.J. McGraw

When a woman dies in a house explosion, Detective Jake North feels that something nasty has just crawled into his quiet Southern neighborhood. Larsen is a good quality town with deep historic roots. People stroll down the sidewalks of Main Street with no fear of being mugged. They take drives out in the country, not worrying if they will be car-jacked. Their children aren’t afraid to play in their own yards. Now, Jake fears that has all changed. His fears are soon confirmed when more bodies start turning up, each victim, meeting a grisly end. What ties them together? Secrets they’ve covered up. Lies they’ve bought their way out of. Lives they’ve destroyed. People go to great lengths to hide nasty secrets. But someone else goes even further to dig them up and settle some scores. It’s up to Jake and his partner Dean to figure out what a crudely carved initial on the bodies and a shocking photo left behind have in common. But as they get too close to learning those nasty secrets, Jake may wish they hadn’t.

306 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

I worked the longest in 911 public safety communications, but I’ve worked a combination of emergency work and law enforcement for almost thirty years. Past experience as a firefighter and paramedic, then moved on to a detention officer, and finally to 911 communications where I retired from.
I also have an Associates Degree in Criminal Justice Tecnology/Latent Evidence
I have taken my life’s work, the experiences, and have been able to create realistic situations and dialog: spinning the story along and watching it form in front of me; keeping things on the edge and keeping people guessing.
Books that I have out are: Initial Kill, Pieces of You, Legend's Game, A killer Blends In, The Chos5n, Marked Targets. The first thre are a triology, the next three are a trilogy, and then I have started the Beck Wolf Series. The first Book in the series is Beginnings, then The Prey Club, and another will be due out October 2023.

Reviews

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book! I would highly recommend this book to anyone who loves a good mystery novel! I can't wait for the next book by this author!

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This appears to be a self-published work and I only read it because a Book Club I'm hoping to join this month had it as the July read. The cover would never have made me pick it up and I'm leery of self-published works. The writing is a bit amateurish. The author used a lot of cliches and much of her dialogue didn't sound like real people speaking. and she often didn't give the reader enough credit for "getting it," as she used too much exposition. All that being said, however, I couldn't put the book down! The story was intriguing, entertaining, thrilling, and her main character, police Detective Jake North, is a great guy. I completely overlooked the book's weaknesses in the pursuit of what was going to happen next. I think Jake, his partner, Dean, Jake's wife, Lexie, and Lexie's twin sister, Allie, should be featured in a whole series of these, and I hope the author is listening. I would really love for a publisher to pick this up and help in promoting it because it's a very worthy read.