The vicious burns scarring the victims' flesh reveal the agony of their last moments. Each woman was branded with a star, then stabbed through the heart. With every death, a vengeful killer finds a brief, blissful moment of calm. But soon it's time for the bloodshed to start again. . .
The Perfect Time. . .
Ten years ago, Eva Rayburn and her sorority sisters were celebrating the end of the school year. That party turned into a nightmare Eva can't forget. Now she's trying to start over in her Virginia hometown, but a new nightmare has begun. Every victim is linked to her. And Detective Deacon Garrison isn't sure whether this mysterious woman needs investigating--or protecting. . . To Make His Mark
Only Eva's death will bring peace. Only her tortured screams will silence the rage that has been building for ten long years. Because what started that night at the sorority can never be stopped--not until the last victim has been marked for death. . .
Making the Grade: C+
For My Thoughts
Senseless by Mary Burton is my first book by this author and I really enjoyed it especially the character of Eva Rayburn. Being sent to prison at the tender age of seventeen for killing a local rich boy Josiah Cross who had beaten and raped her and forever imprinted her body with a burn in the shape of a 4-pointed star from a necklace she wore was an injustice no young girl should be forced to endure. Eva could never remember what happened the night Josiah was killed but her three “besties” (ummmm with friends like them - who needs enemies?) at the time testified against her and sealed her fate. Now ten years later and six months out of prison Eva’s back on familiar turf in Alexandria with a new last name just trying to get her life back on track.
Eva may have been labelled an ex-con, but she never let that hold her back. She was determined and hard working holding down three jobs because she just wanted to earn enough money so she could go back to school. Eva was off the charts smart with a genius IQ and photographic memory...what she could of done with her life if she hadn’t been set up all those years ago for a murder she didn’t commit? Unfortunately bodies with the same 4-pointed star branded into their flesh start turning up and coincidence...I think not...they just happen to be the bodies of Eva’s former “besties” (what goes around comes around girlfriend!).
Working the case is the delectable Detective Deacon Garrison and his partner Malcolm Kier. It doesn’t take long for Detective Garrison to piece together that the bodies piling up are somehow related to Eva and her past. And given her past - she’s not exactly off the list of likely suspects knocking off her former classmates. I just want to mention one niggle I had about how the author always referred to Deacon as Garrison and his partner as Malcolm (and not Kier). Why not refer to both of them by either their first names or their last names when talking about them at the same time? Why one by his last name (I almost forgot he had a first name beside Garrison) and one always by his first name...it really confused and irritated me for some reason, but that’s just me.
I loved Eva’s relationship with her boss and landlord King, owner of the bar where she lived and worked and his 10 year old foster son Bobby and his love of the elusive dumpster kitty Merlin. Although Senseless is labelled as a “romantic suspense” there was no romance save for one incident and that didn’t happen until almost the very end of the book. To say Eva and Deacon’s relationship built slowly is an understatement and given her mistrust of the police and the fact that she was a suspect for a good portion of the book, it was amazing they got together at all.
Senseless was heavy on the suspense with lots of twists and turns and some disturbing moments and I had no clue who the killer was or the motives behind the crimes which I really enjoy when reading a book of this nature. Senseless had a Karen Rose-esque feel to it, but fell just shy of the stellar mark set by Rose’s books. All in all I enjoyed it and will read the next book in the series Merciless about Eva’s half-sister Angie.
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