Serial Killer Games grabbed my attention immediately and kept me turning pages to the end. From the beginning, there’s a suspicion that a series of deaths in the business center of the city might be the work of a serial killer. When the two protagonists meet, that suspicion is quickly embedded in their flirtation. Their first interaction and all that follow are suggestive and just weird enough that I wondered if he was the serial killer—or was she?

The weirdness grew to the point that I was beginning to think it was becoming weirder than I was up for. Then, at about the 40 point, the tone shifted abruptly when the protagonists began to open up to each other. The sudden shift felt like slamming on the brakes after a one minute 0-80 acceleration. From there, the story was a fairly normal romance, with all the misunderstandings and bad assumptions that implies, as the author proceeded to work in nearly every trope of the genre.

One odd point that bugged me was the location. In the second half, a reference to a relative “in the States” made it clear that it wasn’t in the US (Canada? England?). But it wasn’t until the characters flew to Las Vegas in just a few hours that the setting appeared to be Canada, probably Vancouver. A (much) later reference to the Canadian legal system cemented the country, but not the city. It’s a small point, but one I found annoying.

Overall, I enjoyed the novel. After all, I stayed up to 5 AM to finish it.