The Killing Lessons by Saul Black - Book Review

The Killing Lessons came out in 2015, and since then, Saul Black has published two other books that belong to this series reloving around a detective called Valerie Hart. 

This book is about a serial killer that goes by the name of Xander. There are two criminals, but Xander is the alpha and everything that he says has to be done. They’ve been on a rampage for three years, killing women, then stuffing an object in certain areas of the victim’s body. And since the first killing, Valerie Hart has been on this chase to find these serial killers. Finally, there is a new lead after another woman has been taken. The question that we all have is, does Valerie manage to find the killers before they brutally murder their eleventh victim?

I started to like this book from the moment I saw it in the bookshop, the cover of the book is rather daunting, a simple white background with blood splatters and a fly as if we were at a scene of a crime. At the bottom of the cover, it said “Do not read this. No reader deserves to be terrified like this.” 

Now, I wouldn’t say the writing was terrifying, but more the storyline made me fearful. The reason why is because this storyline can happen in real life and it does. There have been many different serial killers for centuries who kill people depending on their sex, race, religion, sexuality and more. This thriller isn’t like any other thriller, where elements can be seen as quite unrealistic - instead, this thriller is happening right now for many people.

I also liked how each character was filled with layers just like every human. No matter what role a character played they were not two-dimensional, they were real. 

However, even after praising this novel, there were some areas that I wasn’t too fond of. There was a big cast of characters, which I believed made the story even more interesting. But, with a big cast, it meant it jumped around a bit between Valerie, the serial killers, a victim’s daughter who escaped, the main victim, other detectives. Due to the amount of jumping around, I pictured that the time between the first page to the last was weeks apart, when the truth is, it was only three days. That’s a big difference, it would be fine if I was a few days off but not this off. A way that Saul Black could fix this solution is by splitting the book into three parts for each day or with each chapter state the date and time. I feel the latter one is the better choice as it goes more with the crime thriller genre. 

There was a major area that I did not like at all, as much as I don’t like saying it, I hated that Black did this. There were only three main female characters, the victim and two detectives. Valerie had good relationships with the other male detectives, whereas with the only other female detective - Carla York - the relationship had so much tension due to this vendetta that York had. Personally, the vendetta was silly and dumb, it was done because Black wanted a certain character to learn something about Valerie, but it could have been done differently. 

The way that Black did this resulted in a catty and petty relationship between Carla and Valerie. As a female, I am disappointed to see male authors still write stereotypical when it’s towards females. Their relationship could have been great and that would have made the story even better, but instead, Black wrote a cliche and suggested that women are always pathetic with one another.

There are two other books after this one about Valerie, I would love to see how she evolves. My only worry is how her relationship with Carla will be, or will there be another female character that Valerie will have the stereotypical catty relationship with?