Independent Book Review: Lethal People, by John Locke

Lethal People, by John Locke, is the first book in the Donovan Creed mystery/crime/thriller series. To say that this is not your typical mystery/crime series doesn’t do the creative spirit of Locke justice. Readers will find that Lethal People is flooded with twists, unexpected characters and action.

The prologue opens with an action packed scene. A house fire. Night. A married couple. A wife and husband attempting to rescue their children across the hall. Any parent’s worst nightmare, right? I found the prologue incredibly well-written, engaging and really… everything that you would want from a thriller:

The fire started in Greg and Melanie’s basement just after midnight and crept upward through the stairwell silently, like a predator tracking food. 

Greg had never read the stats or he’d have known that home fires can turn deadly in just two minutes and that his odds of waking up were three to one.

Against.

 

And yet both he and Melanie had managed it. Was it because she’d screamed? He wasn’t sure. But she was screaming now. Groggy, disoriented, coughing, Greg stumbled to the door. Like millions of others, he’d seen the movie Backdraft, and although the proper term for the event depicted in the film was a “flashover” and not a “backdraft,” he’d learned enough to touch the back of his hand to the top of the door, the doorknob, and the crack between the door and door frame before flinging it open.

 

As he did that, Melanie rolled to the edge of the bed and grabbed her cell phone from the charging cradle on the nightstand. She pressed 911 and cupped her hand around the speaker. Now that Greg was in motion, she felt better, like part of a team instead of an army of one. Only moments ago, Melanie had taken her panic out on Greg’s comatose body by kicking, punching, and screaming him awake. When he finally began to stir, she’d slapped him hard across the face several times.

 

Now they were working together. They’d silently assessed the situation and assigned each other specific roles in an unspoken plan. He’d get the kids; she’d get the firemen.

In all, Lethal People was a page-turner and an unexpectedly entertaining read. Locke’s use of zany and sometimes outright bizarre characters provides readers of the mystery/crime genre with something different. Lethal People is an intriguing first-read in a promising series. For more on the series and the author, check out Lethal Books.