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Avg. Rating: 4
Great suspense&romance
After the recent death of her mother, Karen Whitlaw receives a strange package from her long absent father, and just files it away with the rest of her mother's personal effects. She is the unwitting recipient of her father's "Kill Book," which details the CIA-sanctioned hits he performed going all the way back to the Vietnam War. A phone call from a detective in New Orleans brings Karen to the big easy, to claim the body of her murdered father.
Detective Marc Chastain knows that there is something fishy about his latest murder case. It is a homeless man, but appears more like a professional hit. His investigation into the crime results in some inquires from the local feds.
Not really ready to understand her feelings about her estranged father, Marc figures Karen to be an ice queen, as she appears remote. At first kind of brisk with her, he soon is attracted to her. After a night of hot sex (his seduction on the balcony is one of the better Howard trysts), Karen flees back to the safety of her home in Ohio.
Then more accidents start to happen. She returns to New Orleans and to Marc, as she feels he is the only one she can trust, and the two join together to try to piece together her father's past and realizing that the murderer is after the package she has in storage.
This story also introduces John Medina, a shadowy CIA-operative who plays a minor but pivotal role (and later gets his own in All the Queen's Men), as Marc and Karen try to beat the clock to locate the piece of evidence that will help to solve the crime.
A Feel Good Type of Story Line
I enjoyed this book not for its suspense-laden pages where you couldn't put it down - there wasn't much of that; not for its mystery angle where the reader couldn't figure out the bad guy - it was pretty obvious; but for its overall combination of mystery, romance and just plain old "feel good" type story line. This is the type of book that makes you go "ah" at the end.
Linda Howard has a knack for blending romance and mystery, but tends to lean a bit more towards the romance angle of the story. In Kill and Tell she weaves a tale about Karen Whitlaw, a nurse with an interesting family background. Karen's father came home from the Vietnam War to his wife and child as a changed man. Upon his return, he never seemed to be able to fit back into a normal life like so many soldiers from that era and chose to leave his family and live on the streets in various cities. He'd bounce back every couple of years for short periods of time, but Karen had since decided that she'd rather not have anything to do with a man that could abandon his wife and child. It had been 20 plus years since she'd seen her father, when this saga begins.
A few weeks after Karen's mother dies, her grieving is interrupted when a package arrives from her father addressed to her mother. Karen tosses it into a box with some of her mother's belongings and conveniently forgets that it's there. She doesn't even remember the box when she's called a short time later by a New Orleans detective, Marc Chastain, and told that her father has been murdered. Ok, so this is a tad unbelievable, but I'll chock it up to shock on Karen's part, as it's a minor flaw in the plot.
Karen flies down to New Orleans to identify her father's body and make arrangements for burial. When she meets the gorgeous Marc with the bedroom voice, her heart goes thump and so begins the true plot of this book - an unlikely romance between Karen and Marc. It's love at first sight, with them both ignoring the signs and symptoms (typical romance scheme). We're taken on a sensual journey of seduction as Marc tries to win over the elusive Karen. After a passionate night of sexual exploration, Karen bolts from New Orleans and flees back to Ohio.
Ok, so that would have been an interesting journey, but instead Howard brings back the mystery portion and puts the romance on the back burner. Seems someone wants a "kill book" that was in the box sent to Karen and will go to any means to obtain it, including killing her. After two attempts on her life, Karen races back to New Orleans and into the arms of her knight in shining armor.
Kill and Tell is not for the die-hard mystery fans, as there is more romantic adventures than intrigue. It's a nice blend and an enjoyable read. If you're a mystery buff, then you won't be fooled at all by the attempt to disguise the true villain. If you want a good romance with hot and steamy scenes, punctuated by a bit of "who dunit" to keep the story interesting, then Kill and Tell is the novel for you! If you're looking for a hard-core mystery, find a different book.
Not the best of Linda Howard
I really enjoy Linda Howard but for some reason this book did not seem as well developed as her others. The two main characters, I hate to say, did not really have a relationship- all it seemed like they were doing was having sex (come on- for EIGHTEEN HOURS STRAIGHT! PUHLEESE!) But, they fell in love anyway..I mean she did not know anything about him except for him being a cop..she even says that in the book. I don't know, maybe I was having an off night, but I enjoyed Ms. Howard's books in the past. I loved Mr. Perfect. Oh! Stay away from To die for..it was terrible. I have not given up on Ms. Howard and will read her again..but lately I have been disappointed.
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