My rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Goodreads rating: 3.82 with 28 ratings (as of 8/25/2020)

Life and death have brought Maggie Gardiner full circle, back to the Erie Street Cemetery where she first entered Jack Renner’s orbit. Eight months ago, she learned what Jack would do in the name of justice. More unsettling still, she discovered how far she would go to cover his tracks. Now a young man sprawls atop a snowy grave, his heart shredded by a single wound. A key card in the victim’s wallet leads to the local university’s student housing–and to a grieving girlfriend with an unsettling agenda.

Maggie’s struggle to appease her conscience is complicated by her ex-husband, Rick, who’s convinced that Jack is connected to a series of vigilante killings. Also a homicide detective, Rick investigates what seems like a routine overdose on Cleveland’s West Side; but here, too, the appearance belies a deeper truth.

Rick’s case and Jack’s merge onto the trail of a shadowy, pill-pushing physician who is everywhere and nowhere at once, while Maggie and Jack uncover a massive financial shakedown hiding in plain sight. And when Rick’s bloody fingerprint is found at another murder scene, Maggie’s world comes undone in a violent, irreversible torrent of events …Synopsis from Goodreads

200 Word Review

I was provided with a complimentary copy of this book so I could give an honest review. The opinions are entirely my own, and any quotes are taken from the ARC and may be different in the final published copy.

Every Kind of Wicked by Lisa Black is the 6th book in her Gardiner and Renner series. I have not read any of the earlier books so, to give a fair review, I read the 1st book, That Darkness. While some novels allow you to pick up in the middle of the series, having a basic understanding of the main characters helped reading Every Kind of Wicked. I will include a description of them below this review.

Maggie Gardiner and Jack Renner investigate a murder which occurred where they first met, in the Erie Street Cemetery. She is having difficulty dealing with the events of the last eight months, and Rick, her ex-husband, is suspicious of Jack. Rick wants to investigate Jack and his past.

Black’s Gardiner and Renner are an interesting duo. If you have not read any of the Gardiner and Renner series, think Bones meets Dexter. They allow people to believe they are dating to throw off any suspicions they have of Jack. The event which brought them together continues to pull them closer.

Once I knew who the characters were, I enjoyed the book. I will continue reading the series and start Black’s Theresa MacLean series.

Here is what you need to know to get the most out of Lisa Black’s Gardiner and Renner series before reading book #6.

Maggie Gardiner forensic investigator for the Cleveland Police Department and she is good at it. She works alongside the homicide detectives, including Rick, her ex-husband, and Jack Renner. Maggie and Jack met eight months prior while working a case involving a Jane Doe discovered in the local cemetery.

Jack has a mission. He needs to find the women he is hunting, and has been hunting, through several states.

Maggie follows all of the clues which keep pointing to one person – Jack. After confronting Jack, Maggie needs to decide if it is moral to kill someone that has harmed others and that will do harm again. She agrees to give Jack time to leave so as not to arouse suspicions that the serial killings stopped when he left Cleveland.

At some point after the first book, That Darkness, but before the 6th book, Every Kind of Wicked, Rick becomes suspicious of Jack. He is determined to show Maggie the kind of man Jack is.

This review was published on Philomathinphila.com, Smashbomb, Goodreads, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, and Barnes and Noble on 8/25/20. When available, the review will be published on Scribd.com and, using Overdrive, will be rated in 9 libraries.

Genre: Mystery & Thrillers, Book series
Print Length: 320 pages
ISBN: 9781496722386
Publisher: Kensington Publishing
Publication Date: August 25, 2020

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