Taboo by Casey Hill

In Taboo, Reilly Steel from San Francisco goes to Dublin to help the forensics team upgrade their techniques. When a young man and woman are found dead in a hotel room, Reilly soon realizes that there's more to it than first meets the eye. As more bodies are found, the police and forensic team determine that have a demented serial killer on the loose, who's determined to put society's taboos on display.

I really enjoyed this book. The author is such a great mystery teller. The details are drawn out slowly so that the reader is compelled to turn the page and keep reading. There are some interesting twists and turns scattered throughout the book. Some of the details were a tad gory or unpleasant to think about, but overall it wasn't too bad. The book was definitely hard to put down.

I love reading books set in countries different from my own. This was set in Dublin, Ireland. A place I'd like to visit one day. I believe this is the first book I've read set in that city, but I may have read one set in Ireland. Regardless, I loved all of the location details.

Besides the main story, the book also contains some surprisingly compelling side stories. There's a possible illness and alcoholic father to contend with. These stories are written in such a way that they didn't feel like filler material. They really added depth to the characters and substance to the story. I was surprised that I found them almost as intriguing as the main mystery. Well done!!

I really liked Riley. She was a strong intelligent woman. Her family history and past events were haunting her, but the author didn't tell us why right away. Like with the mystery, the details were revealed slowly, so it wasn't until closer to the end of the book that the reader got the whole picture. My one complaint about Riley was that she was a bit condescending towards her co-workers. She had more experience than them and was brought to Dublin to bring them up to speed, but her approach made me cringe a few times.

Casey Hill is the pseudonym of husband and wife team Melissa and Kevin Hill.

Highly recommended. I'd definitely read another book by this team.

For more information about this book, please visit Simon & Schuster's website.

For more information about the Hills and the other books, please visit the Casey Hill Books website.

I'd like to thank those nice people at Simon & Schuster for this review copy.

Taboo by Casey Hill, Simon & Schuster ©2011. ISBN 9780857202390(Uncorrected proof), 409p.