Review | 99 PERCENT KILL by Doug Richardson

99 Percent Kill by Doug Richardson
Contemporary Crime/Thriller Published August 15, 2015
Velvet Elvis Entertainment
Author's website  |  Goodreads  |  Buy the Book on Amazon

Synopsis from Goodreads:

99 Percent Kill follows Lucky Dey, an on-again/off-again Los Angeles County Sheriff’s detective who is both willful and acerbic to a dangerous fault. While in a holding pattern for official reinstatement, Lucky accepts a one-time gig to track down the missing teenage daughter of a Midwestern software millionaire. The novel is the first in a series, but also lives as a stand-alone thriller, winding its way through an L.A. landscape where the lights are bright, but the edges can be dark, perilously frayed, and populated with mix of human predators, amusing losers, and ambitious fringe dwellers. 

My Thoughts...

As much as I enjoyed Blood Money, my first taste of Lucky Dey, and as much as I was looking forward to reading this new book...it just didn't quite meet my expectations.  To that end, I am going to keep this review pretty short.

So the synopsis pretty much sums up what the story is about.  It's set in the seedier parts of L.A. with a glimpse of classier places like the Biltmore Hotel, but the bulk of the story happens far away from that.  Lucky is on a missing teenager case at the behest of Conrad Ellis who we met in the first book.  It kind of baffles me that Conrad is associated with Andrew, but what do I know!  As with the first book here is a whole cast of extremely unlikable characters with questionable motivation.  Herm is in search of his "unicorn" when he gets a glimpse of Karrie. He spends the whole of the book trying to get his hands on her.  He is more or less a pimp on the lookout for the really young girls that no one will  look for when they disappear, but he doesn't count on Lucky.

It may be because I got an ARC and maybe there was still editing to be done, but I had issues with the pacing of this story.  There were a lot of scenes that didn't really add to the story, characters that didn't necessarily need to be there to further the story.  I got an icky feeling from Andrew from the beginning and that was warranted, but it was overdone at times.  Then when you get to the end of the story all the final conflict takes place in just a few pages and then there is a cliffhanger ending!

I do still really like the character of Lucky but was a little disappointed to see that his relationship with Lydia was already over when this story started.  That was one of the better parts of the first book and what made him so likable for me.  My other favorite character in the book was Cherry Pie, she was a great character and added so much to the story.  She really had so much more potential than she was given.

I would like to see where this story goes so I will probably continue to read the series, but I think in the future I will wait for a finished copy.

XOXO, Shelly

*Disclaimer: I was provided with a copy of this book courtesy of the author in exchange for my honest review.*