The Beautiful Dead by Belinda Bauer

The Beautiful Dead by Belinda Bauer
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

There’s no safety in numbers . . .

Eve Singer needs death. With her career as a TV crime reporter flagging, she’ll do anything to satisfy her ghoulish audience.

The killer needs death too. He even advertises his macabre public performances, where he hopes to show the whole world the beauty of dying.

When he contacts Eve, she welcomes the chance to be first with the news from every gory scene. Until she realizes that the killer has two obsessions.

One is public murder.

And the other one is her . . .

Really enjoyed the roller coaster ride of this novel; it moved along at a fast pace and was never boring or heavy going. I read this in 2 days cover to cover.

Good engaging characters, loved Eve the TV crime reporter and Joe her photographer from the start. Eve is struggling to cope with her father who has progressive dementia and hold down her very stressful job as a crime reporter for a demanding news network. Trying to juggle her responsibilities to her father, come to terms with the harsh reality of dementia and her emotions she is equally very aware of the need to keep one step ahead of the other networks to maintain her position at the top and to secure her job from younger, fresher reporters coming up behind her. Constantly battling to be first with the next sensational scoop she is desperate to get off this merry go round of 'meat beat' (homicides) and move on to less pressurised reporting. While working on a homicide she becomes the focus of the psycho killer and becomes entangled in his warped world.

Great characters with good plot and all ends tied up nicely make this a really good read, I enjoyed every page and found I came to connect with Eve on all levels, she was sympathetic, brave, funny and vulnerable, loved the secondary characters and Dad despite his illness Belinda Bauer still managed to show the person Eve knew and loved before he started to 'disappear'.

Have to give this one 5 stars for its beauty, artistry, and its execution.

I would like to thank the publisher for sending this in exchange for an honest review.