Killer Instinct

Almost as soon as I finished the first book in this series, I begun this one. I finished it in a day and went straight onto the next one. This followed on from ‘The Naturals’ and explored the program further.

A killer had started murdering people in the same way one of the profilers (Dean) dad had. However, in this time, the team was able to work the active case, rather than being restricted to only working on the cold cases. They do go out to investigate at the crime scene without permission, but otherwise their allowed involvement in the case made the whole book a lot more interesting.

I honestly wasn’t expecting the sequel to be as good as this was, as usually I find that sequels disappoint me and aren't as good as the initial book to a series, but reading this felt like the author had not given up as soon as the first book published.

It turned out at the end that there was not only one killer, but three, all being instructed by Dean’s dad. The final murderer, the one that last the longest without being ended by one of the other two, was a guard at the prison Daniel Redding was being held in. He abducted Agent Sterling and Cassie Hobbes (the protagonist) and took them to a barn type environment. He tied them up, then allowed them to go. However, instead of simply letting them go, he counted, then took of himself to chase them and kill them, he did this as he believed to have grown powerful enough to not need help from Redding and get away with things his own way (he didn’t).

The story was extremely fast paced, although I enjoyed this as it meant I could feel my heart beating faster as I got further into the book, finding out all the plot twists in real time. Nevertheless, as much as I loved this book, I was not the biggest fan of the ongoing love triangle.

Cassie, Dean and Michael were all involved in a complicated situation, where Cassie had feelings for both boys, and they both had feelings for Cassie. I thought at some points she was playing around with Michael and Dean a bit, by leading them on whilst still being indecisive and not taking into consideration these two people’s feelings over her own selfish ones. If she had left them alone and not let them both think they had an equal chance, that would be better until she had eventually made a choice. Although I do think this was written well and is a somewhat accurate representation of the ways teenagers act, and is kind of understandable when put into this strange situation.

Overall, this was a great sequel, and it made me instantly pick up the next part. I honestly have no proper reason to write anything negative about this series and don’t think I ever will. I love this series so much, and it keeps getting better.

★★★★