LOVE THIS SERIES!
And, if only there were another book on the series, I would be reading it rather than writing this (this review, which I am now REWRITING for the THIRD TIME because my Kindle decides, far too often to, after I have written two paragraphs, to make my review just DISAPPEAR! But, I will give it one more try, because I love these books and want to SAY so).
SO, there is nothing I like reading more than a good series, but this is the first one I have read book to book to book. Casey Hill is a born story-teller, and these are the precise stories she was born to tell. Her prose is effortless yet compelling. One can identify with all of her characters with them remaining quite singular creations. Her plots, crimes, murders, are clever and thrilling and chilling and endlessly entertaining. And, I just KNOW that there will be at least one more Reilly Steel book because Hill has left us with far too many events-to-come that she has artfully made us care quite deeply about.
If I were to express one caveat to the complete BRILLIANCE of this series, it is that it's central character, Reilly Steel, is, often, incredibly irritating, completely selfish, and determined not to budge one iota away from the person, the "character" she has decided she will be. She is obsessively self-conscious. Always watching herself to make sure her actions and reactions remain within the narrow parameters of how she has designed herself. But, there can be a fine line, or a gaping trench, between individualism and stubbornness. Between impulsive realization and reckless endangerment. Between enjoying one's own company and a cost-effective loneliness. Between sound, career-appropriate decisions and using her love of her job to push away and make threatening any form of human contact. For someone everyone seems to love, with quite o percentage of them IN love with her, Reilly Steel may be one of the least lovable characters I've ever encountered in a book.
SPOILER ALERT! Particularly after she, due to an entirely reckless encounter, she finds herself pregnant, much to her horror, anger, and eagerness to blame everyone on earth but herself. She HATES being pregnant; all it does, this "Blob" inside her, is get in the way of her work, make her clothing tighter, make it impossible to sleep and, most horrible of all; result in people TREATING her as if she is PREGNANT! How DARE they? Further, even though she doesn't like children, doesn't want one herself, is not in a relationship with "it's" father, and is furious at the thought of the eventual baby not only ruining her career, but being demanding of her attention, constantly wanting good and shelter and safety and the caring that she KNOWS she cannot give it, she NEVER ONCE considered any of the alternatives available too seeing the pregnancy through and actually HAVING this "thing that dhe, from the moment the test was positive, resented, blamed, disliked, was terrified of and furious with.
Aside from THAT, the Reilly Steel series has been an absolute delight and one of my favorite literary series. I will be hot on the lookout for the next installment!