Mind Games (Kaely Quinn Profiler Book 1)

 

Shirley J.                       Adult Fiction                         Serial Killers, Profilers, F.B.I.

Mind Games (Kaely Quinn Profiler Book 1) by Nancy Mehl   338 pages

Kaely Quinn is a profiler for the F.B.I.   She is also the daughter of a serial killer.   Thus begins the story with explanations of her life as a child at home and how there were no signs picked up by her nor her mother of her father's proclivity.     When she grew up she wanted to help other people and their families from having to go through the horror she now understood her father had put so many victims and their families through.   Due to the stigma attached her mother moved after their father was arrested.  The kids ended up being home schooled after all the media attention.   Her brother later blamed Kaely and her mother for knowing the truth and not telling the police.   He, Jason, moved away and vowed never to have anything to do with either of them.  He even changed his name to get away from the stigma attached to it.   Kaely later changed her name as well.  As a young girl, she had been Jessica Oliphant.  All of a sudden a serial killer materializes, sending rhymes, playing on her real name Oliphant with rhymes about elephants and when he kills his victims he puts an elephant with a sequential number on the victim's chests.   So many possible suspects until some of them are killed, too.   A good plot twist and during Kaely's process for figuring out who the killers are, she imagines the perpetrators, then,  she has conversations with these imaginary perps. to try to discern more about who they are.   Her colleagues become concerned when the perps start talking back to her, more so when they do it without her asking them to.   I kept waiting for a paranormal twist but that won't be found here we are talking psychological not paranormal.   I would recommend this one to high schoolers on up.