Perfectly Twisted
by Kristine Mason
My Review
I’ve read Kristine’s other CORE books and I thought I was prepared for this new venture. She can take a plot, twist it, warp it, throw in a mix of characters that are so out there you can’t help but believe in them, and simultaneously woo you with a romance.
The founder of CORE along with her future step-father, task Lola with putting together her own team. They call themselves ATL (Above The Law) and operate under the radar.
About those characters I mentioned were so out there you couldn’t help but believe in them. This is where the author shines too. Mel works at the ice cream shop. You’d never know she also runs a chop shop and can handle herself in a knife fight. And she’s the go to girl if you need to make a body disappear.
Vlad, ex Russian mob hitman, shows off his pet alligator to the tourists. He really doesn’t have a job, except he does open his mouth and put his foot in it a lot. I feel he purposely used words in the wrong contex. The rascal.
These are just some of them.
Lola and her fiancee, Ryan, using their airboat tours as a cover, wait for their first assignment. It gets a bit complicated when Ryan’s brother, Shane, joins the business.
Freshly released from a seven year stint in prison, Shane is anxious to rebuild his Everglades aircraft tours while taking groups out on tours with the airboat. It’s here that he meets Beth.
Beth is a sheriff’s deputy working her way through law school. She isn’t looking for romance, but there’s something about Shane, the sexy airboat guide, that keeps her coming back for another ride through the glades.
These two have it tough. Shane learns Beth’s a cop. He doubts she’ll want anything to do with him when she hears he’s a convicted felon.
Beth really likes Shane, but she’s hesitant to reveal she’s a cop. Past experience has taught her men don’t want to date a cop.
Shane begins to suspect something is going on with the business. The employees don’t fit in, they don’t seem to really have a job, and Lola and the team decide to clue Shane in, invite him to join them. They could use a pilot.
All of this going on drew me away from the beginning of the book. A snake handling reverend, really a con man. And a man who turns to necrophilia in order to please his girlfriend.
Once three dead bodies are discovered and Beth steps in to investigate, you begin to see the stories converge. So this is where you brace yourself, as the story gets more twisted, more thrilling, more dangerous. Culminating in a shock and awe ending.
The title Perfectly Twisted is exactly what this book is. You could use this title for all of Kristine’s books. That’s how well she weaves her plots, draws you in, and then blows you away.
I discovered Kristine’s books through my sister. She read one of Kristine’s CORE books and was so excited about it. She called me up, raved for a long time, and insisted I read her book.
She’s been waiting for me to finish Perfectly Twisted so we can talk about it. Now that I’ve written my review we’ll be rehashing everything about this thrilling read.
I urge you to pick up this seat of your pants thriller.
5 Stars
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BLURB:
What do you get when you mix a snake-handling reverend, a necrophiliac, a cop and an ex-con? Something perfectly twisted…
Sound like the start of a bad joke? Not to Shane Monahan. The ex-con and newest recruit to the underground criminal investigation group, A.T.L. or Above the Law, has it bad for Collier County Deputy Beth Price. But ex-cons and cops don’t mix, especially when this particular ex-con is looking at going back to prison for his involvement with A.T.L.
All Beth wants is a fun distraction from the stress of her job and law school. She thinks she’s found that when she meets Shane during an airboat tour through the Florida Everglades. But Shane’s a felon, a man who could destroy her career as a deputy, and jeopardize her future as an attorney. She doesn’t know what to do—until dead bodies start showing up around the county.
When three abused corpses are found with snake remains inside them, the discovery brings a murderer out of retirement. The Reverend, as he calls himself, doesn’t like his kills being mimicked, especially by a man who abuses the dead—after all, the Reverend does have a reputation to uphold and a congregation to scam. Now it’s time to teach his copycat a deadly lesson…
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Take a peek inside….
Before Vlad dug himself into a deep hole, Shane touched Beth’s arm and motioned toward the wooden ramp leading to the dock. “Don’t mind Vlad,” he said, once they’d distanced themselves from the Russian.
“It’s kind of hard not to when the man said that you’d like to kiss me on the boat.”
“That’s not what he said.”
She stopped when they reached the dock. “That’s what I heard.”
Damn it. He was going to have to have a serious conversation with his brother about Vlad. “I apologize if Vlad made you uncomfortable. I never told him I wanted to kiss you. Vlad has a thing for the Kiss song Beth. He also does this weird thing with peoples’ names. He calls my brother Captain Ryan, and my future sister-in-law Asian Lola.”
“Why does he call her that?”
“Because she’s Asian.”
Beth laughed. “Isn’t Vlad the master of the obvious? I love it. Okay, so Vlad nicknamed me Kiss Beth and you don’t want to kiss me. Gotcha.”
“I didn’t say that.” Smooth, Monahan. Screw it. He wanted to see her away from the boat shop, take her out to dinner, find out more about her and, yes, kiss her.
When her lips tilted in a sexy smile, he relaxed. She turned and climbed onto the airboat, then settled on the cushioned bench seat. “For the record, I wouldn’t turn down a kiss from you,” she said, and reached for the headphones used to block the loud sound of the airboat.
Maybe not right now, but once Beth found out about his past, she would probably run in the other direction. What woman would want to kiss a convicted murderer?
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Author Kristine Mason
Kristine Mason is the bestselling author of the popular romantic suspense trilogies, C.O.R.E. Shadow and Ultimate C.O.R.E. She is currently working on her next trilogy, C.O.R.E. Above the Law, along with a series of Psychic C.O.R.E. novellas.
Although Kristine has published a few contemporary romance novels, she focuses most of her energy on her romantic suspense stories, which she loves for their blend of dark mystery/suspense and sexy romance. She is fascinated with what makes people afraid, and is famous for her depraved villains whose crimes present massive obstacles for her heroes and heroines to overcome.
Kristine has a degree in journalism from Ohio State University and lives in Northeast Ohio with her husband, four kids, and two dogs. If she’s not writing, she’s chauffeuring kids, gardening, or collecting gnomes. Oh, and she makes a mean chocolate chip cookie!
Connect with Kristine on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/kristinemasonauthor, Twitter https://twitter.com/KristineMason7 or email her at authorkristinemason@gmail.com. You can also find out more about Kristine’s books at http://www.kristinemason.net
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