Book Reviews by Elizabeth A. White

“Man, I know our job is to protect and serve, but sometimes I wish we could just let nature thin out the herd.” – Terry Biggs

LAPD Detective Terry Biggs can be forgiven for not being overly enthusiastic about the prospect of locking up the killer he and partner Detective Mike Lomax find themselves tracking in Cut, Paste, Kill, the fourth entry in author Marshall Karp’s consistently excellent Lomax & Biggs series.

After all, the victim at the crime scene they respond to at the book’s opening turns out to be a woman who recently caused a crash while driving drunk that killed a child. But since she was the wife of a foreign diplomat she walked away from the accident without facing any charges because of her husband’s diplomatic immunity.

To remove any doubt as to why she was murdered, the killer leaves an elaborate scrapbook at the scene chronicling coverage of the accident, as well as the devastating impact it had on the family.

Lomax & Biggs soon learn that it wasn’t the first such scrapbook to show up at a murder scene when the F.B.I. informs them that there have been two other “scrapbook murders.” In both prior cases the victims had also escaped any punishment for crimes they had committed.

During the course of the investigation they get a tip from a prison informant which seems to point the way to the killer, as well as reveals that the killer is working from a list, and from there it’s a race for Special Agent Simone Trotter, Lomax and Biggs to find the vigilante scrapbook killer before they can add more victims to their collection. And just when everyone thinks they’ve got it all figured out, Karp serves up a wicked swerve that keeps both the reader and the investigators guessing right up to the very end.

Special Agent Trotter’s introduction to the mix allows for some marvelous exchanges between her and the “always on” humor of Biggs: “You sound like a man who knows a few things about women.” “Agent Trotter, I’ve been married four times, which means that I really don’t know shit about women.” The other major new player in Cut, Paste, Kill, Sophie, the wonderfully precocious 7 year old daughter of a friend, ends up with all concerned wrapped around finger.

Blending edge of your seat mystery and laugh-out-loud humor in such a way that neither steps on the other’s toes is not easy, yet once again Karp proves himself a master of that delicate operation in Cut, Paste, Kill. So what are you waiting for? Buy, Read, Enjoy!

Cut, Paste, Kill is available from St. Martin’s Griffin (ISBN: 978-0312378240).

Flipping Out is the third book in a wonderful series by Marshall Karp featuring LAPD Homicide Detectives Mike Lomax and Terry Biggs. If you haven’t read the first two yet, never fear. Karp’s style of writing is such that you can jump right in and hit the ground running… then go back and order books one and two, The Rabbit Factory and Bloodthirsty.

The premise of Flipping Out revolves around a group of women who form a business to renovate and “flip” houses for profit. Lomax & Biggs become “involved” with the project when a member of the house flipping group, who was also the wife of one of their fellow detectives, is murdered at the location of the group’s most recent house flipping project.

Before Lomax & Biggs can figure out whether the victim was targeted because she was a police officer’s wife or because she was a member of the house flipping team a second murder occurs, also of a woman who was a member of the house flipping team and a police officer’s wife. Clearly, Lomax & Biggs have their hands full with a serial killer, and from there the pursuit is on in a race against the clock to catch the killer before he/she can work their way through the entire house flipping team.

It’s not easy to write a book that is both edge of your seat mystery as well as laugh-out-loud funny, but Karp pulls it off effortlessly. The black humor banter between Lomax & Biggs is razor sharp, and the one-liners fly fast and furious. But beneath the surface jocularity there is real depth to the characters in Karp’s novels. Even the most bit player comes across as three-dimensional, and Lomax & Biggs are fully realized characters, wonderfully painted in a million shades of grey… there is nothing “stock” about these Hollywood Detectives.

Far from putting it into cruise control for his third book, Karp just keeps getting better. This is easily the most complex mystery of his three offerings to date. The “who” of the “who dunnit?” is never obvious, and even when you think you’ve got it figured out Karp manages to serve up a wicked curveball of an ending. If you like mysteries, police procedurals, characters with depth, and laugh-out-loud writing then look no further… Flipping Out has it all, and then some!

To learn more about Marshall, Lomax & Biggs visit Marshall’s website.