BLURB:

“The poet is a liar who always speaks the truth.” -Jean Cocteau

Some call him friend or boss. Some call him husband or dad. Some call him son, even a favorite son.
But the only title that matters to him is the one the media has given him: The Poet.

A name he earned from the written words he leaves behind after he kills that are as dark and mysterious as the reason he chooses his victims. One word, two, three, a story in a poem, a secret that only Detective Samantha Jazz can solve. Because he’s writing this story for her.

She just doesn’t know it yet.

MY THOUGHTS:

Thanks to NetGalley and Entangled Publishing for letting me read an ARC of this book.

The premise was quite interesting and sounded exciting, and that’s why I requested a copy of this book. But I had a hard time getting into it. It took me forever to read the first 25% of the book, because it didn’t have a lot of action and it started sounding repetitive. It was also a bit confusing, to the point that I didn’t know what they were talking about at times. Jumping from one case to the other, from one person to another, talking about the past, talking about the present… It was way too convoluted and complicated, while at the same time not saying a lot.

As for the main character, Detective Jazz, I didn’t like it. I didn’t feel any kind of connection or sympathy towards her. I think the book could improve with way less of her inner thoughts, which tend to be the same thing over and over again. Yeah, we get it, you went through a traumatic event and felt betrayed. Time to move on.

The rest of the characters were okay, but not memorable. By halfway reading the book, I was mixing them up; their voices were too similar. And the murderer character wasn’t intriguing enough for me.

Plot wise, there were some details that irritated me, but I cannot elaborate more without revealing spoilers. I will just say that some things felt too convenient, others too random, and the moments when some of the characters had a sudden revelation felt too forced.

Overall, it didn’t get my attention and I ended up skipping huge parts of the book to get to the end. Over one hundred chapters seems overkill to me.

So, for all of that, I give this book… 2 TEA CUPS!