Killer Pursuit

Killer Pursuit by Jeff Gunhus   350 pages

I discovered author Jeff Gunhus’ work in 2015 when I read his Night Chill and The Torment of Rachel Adams. Night Chill scared me so bad that I didn’t sleep for three days and still haven’t worked up the courage to read its sequel, Night Terror.

But now he’s turned to a new genre, the political thriller. In Killer Pursuit, the second in the Allison McNeil series, Gunhus takes on serial killers, FBI agents, and prostitutes in Washington, D.C.

High society call-girl, Catherine Fews, is brutally murdered in her Georgetown home. While Catherine is being dismembered, Allison is about to gun down another bad guy.

The D.C. detectives who are investigating Catherine’s death find not one, but two, cameras hidden in her bedroom walls. One is a traditional, security-like camera that has had its memory erased. The other is a highly sophisticated device that “is connected to the Internet through an encrypted connection…and no one knows who’s on the other end.” Hence the FBI’s involvement.

As the news of Catherine’s death travels through the city, many high profile politicians start to sweat, especially the man most likely to be the next President of the United States.

Because of the nature of the crime, the FBI Director asks Allison to run an off-the-record investigation. Seems this case is similar to the one in the first book, Killer Within, which justifies Allison’s probe. I haven’t read the first book. When Gunhus refers to that case, he does an excellent job in supplying the details the reader needs.

Killer Pursuit is a good read, not a great read, which is why I give it 4 out of 5 stars. It had a strong plot (the killer was a surprise). The writing was good, the pacing was excellent. The dialogue was natural and flowed well, and the characters were well-developed. However, there just wasn’t’ anything to set the novel apart from the hundreds that are already out there.