The Kult by Shaun Jeffrey

People are predictable. That's what makes them easy to kill.

Acting out of misguided loyalty to his friends, police officer Prosper Snow is goaded into helping them perform a copycat killing, but when the real killer comes after him, it’s not only his life on the line, but his family's too. Now if he goes to his colleagues for help, he risks being arrested for murder. If he doesn't, he risks being killed.

I received this ebook from the Librarything Giveaway program a few weeks ago and I just got around to really reading it. I love serial killer stories, although I don’t read too many thrillers.

This is a good book, not the most original I’ve ever come across, but it certainly keeps you turning the pages. There are some beautiful descriptive passages that made me smile, even through a slight twitch at the gore. Sometimes you just need some guts spilling. Ok, maybe it’s just me.

The main character is what one could call the quintessential cop, middle-aged, depressed, with family problems who is leading the case against the Oracle, the serial killer who brutalizes his victims then leaves pictures with other serial killer’s names for the cops to find. What is best about this story is the relationship between Prosper (the cop) and his circle of friends. The reader gets to see some good dialogue and characterization with all of them.

I felt the ending, however, was hurried. I don’t mean the climactic scene, but the very end. Prosper was in a world of trouble, framed for murder, etc. and we turn the page and it’s six months later. To me that’s lazy writing. You have to explain the way it happened, not just tell us that he was able to convince the other cops he wasn’t the killer, blah blah blah, no, actually show us how he made it out of that mess. I hate when the author just gives up. It’s not fair for the reader who has followed the words like a crumb trail to the end.

Anyway, that was my biggest issue with the novel. I do recommend it, especially if you are less volatile than I am when it comes to endings that are a bit too perfect.