Count to Ten

Title: Count to Ten

Author: Karen Rose

Genre: Crime, thriller, mystery

Rating: A

Blurb: Abandoned to the foster-care system, two young brothers end up in an unimaginable hell. When one dies, the other vows revenge on those responsible.

A fire investigator

Chicago Fire Department veteran Reed Solliday is sickened. An autopsy has revealed that a young girl found in the wreckage of an explosion was raped and murdered before fire ripped through the house. Solliday must now join forces with the police if they are to find the killer...

A detective

Determined to bury herself in work after her partner is shot, Mia Mitchell is immediately confronted by her most challenging case - an arsonist who has escalated from fire to rape and murder.

What will happen when their lives collide?

Count to ten and watch their worlds explode.

Opinion: A really excellent read, and only the tiniest bit hampered by the predictable romance line of the novel (the two characters always get together in the end *sigh*). Still, the thrill bit was every bit as absorbing and I was up late into the night trying) and failing - through no fault of the novel) to finish the book. The morning after, I grabbed the book as soon as humanely possible, continued reading, and was spooked for the rest of the day, having been heightened to a new feeling of paranoia. ;)

Character development was OK in the novel - I liked the way they interacted although really, don't you think the tough-female-cop-with-a-bad-past has been overused? Still, I'm the typical gal who enjoys such stories. D:

The murderer/arsonist cuts a swath of dead bodies through the novel, and sometimes you can't help but go, "No, don't kill him/her!" but the wish never comes true. Well, almost never. You can't help but feel sorry for the people he kills because for me, death is a very personal issue (although I have no problem writing the deaths of my own characters D:). Karen Rose is my new author addiction and I highly recommend that you hunt down this book and have a read.

~rage-chan