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ONLY READ THIS if YOU’VE FINISHED THE BOOK. I’m taking the liberty of opening this up to talk about the book in its entirety and to dive into what I loved and all the spoilers! This was a 4 star read for me!

Last chance. This was published March 19, 2024.

I read one of Steve Cavanagh’s books a few years ago and loved it. Thirt3en was such a great psychological thriller that was about the killer was on the jury for someone else accused of his crime! I LOVE psychological thrillers because messing with my head really intrigues me. I love when I can be fooled.

I had seen some early reviews of mediocre ratings so I was a little hesitant on picking this up for fear that I would be completely underwhelmed. As the publish date got closer I started seeing more reviews and a few trusted sources gave it a good nod. I knew I wanted to read it before it got too much buzz and too many reviews with unmeaning spoilers in them. I started out by reading this on my kindle and switching to my audio when I had to actually get some work done! I finished this within 48 hours because it was THAT good.

The start: I love when a book starts off really strong by putting the reader right into the middle of the action. We are immediately a part of Amandas world where she’s planning to do a foolhardy murder on the SUBWAY of all places! I was like girl! Don’t do it! Luckily her plan was foiled. I do have to say it was a little sus that she so casually dropped her gun into an unknowing mans briefcase and then nothing ever came of it. I mean come on, when that man get’s to work and all of the sudden finds this revolver in his bag he does what with it? A normal person would call the police department and offer it up and say perhaps it had to do with the incident on the subway?? But, perhaps he was another murderer and to get his hands on a gun not in his name was the deal of the day for him. Yeah, let’s go with that one.

Also, if I’m going to stalk the guy that I think kidnapped and killed my daughter, I would be more cautious about it. Like, don’t get caught! Also, if I’m going to murder him (I probably shouldn’t be writing this sentence) there are a lot more clever ways of killing him than in front of a hundred people in a locked space underground….

Okay. I did have to suspend some disbelief that Amanda would go to Wendy’s apartment after a night out and actually sleep there. I get why Wendy did it, but come on Amanda. Be smarter. The set-up was awesome though and Naomi achieved her plan with the untouchable unlocked bedroom door. But also, can we talk about all that work it takes her to set up each apartment and the quick evacuation it required once she set her plan in motion?? Moving takes me longer!

So Amanda approaches Wendy and suggests this I’ll kill your guy if you’ll kill mine. Unlikely that this would happen so quickly, but okay, I went along for the ride.

All of the sudden Wendy kills Amanda’s target without really confirming or talking out the plan. If I was Amanda I would’ve been completely…flabbergasted that she just went and killed him. Then the expectation that Amanda has to go kill Wendy’s guy TONIGHT, whoa! I mean it screams red flags right? I think it would’ve made sense for Amanda to do a bit more due diligence…I mean she did check a bit, but I’ve always found if someone is pushing me to get something done quickly and now, there’s often a problem that they don't want me to know about. (Real life stories).

I wasn’t rolling my eyes too bad, I was there for the ride and let the book take me!

Oh my gosh! Graphic! I was like, this is not a good idea. You think you’re going to kill him with an AX? How traumatic and I was really doubting that she had the strength to swing and hit him good enough. Than the fact that he fought back. I was stressing out majorly. Let’s be honest, the number of times she had to swing in an attempt to end him was really disturbing. I’m just going to stop here. But really, NOT a good murder plan.

As I’m writing this I’m realizing, Amanda’s not that smart…

Amanda runs away and then sees who we later realize is Billy. Oh Billy…

I loved that Cavanagh led us readers to believe that Ruth had the same timeline as Amanda. I was just as invested in her storyline as Amanda’s and that’s not always the case with rotating POV’s.

By around 70% I got a feeling that Wendy/Naomi was Ruth and I was all of the sudden shocked and started putting the puzzle pieces together. Then to realize that Ruth was this total serial killer based on her experience with the break in and attack and her near death…WOW. I did not see that coming until it hit me.

Let’s talk about Ruth. An absolutely horrifying event to have someone IN your house and ATTACK you with the intent to KILL you. No thank you. She has every reason to be completely fearful. What did you think about her not wanting to be home but in a hotel? I feel like I would’ve wanted to go home but get a major security system in place. Home is what is my comfort. But, I’ll let it slide. I was pretty surprised that her “attacker” was in the hotel with them, but it made sense to me.

Then her husband. The fact that he took it upon himself to rid Ruth of this threat of the blue-eyed man…sheesh. The attack and killing got gruesome. There were a few parts in this book where I straight up cringed. More than normal for me. I appreciated that they were short cringy sentences explaining what went down, but ick. It made sense to me that Ruth’s husband was so disturbed at this murder he just did. I think it was much worse for him than he imagined and was haunting him. I was completely shocked when he died by suicide!

Poor Ruth. No wonder she was messed up. Okay, let’s change the book and send Ruth to therapy, encircle her with some best friends, have her parents there or some siblings to support her and she get’s all better. But this is a psychological thriller so let’s go worst case scenario…she turns into a serial killer!

Once I realized who Ruth was and that she was Naomi and what her plan was, to just continue killing all of the blue-eyed men she saw…I was kind of like…um okay. Not buying it but I’ll go with it. I do believe she had legit trauma but I really don’t think she would be put together well enough to orchestrate all of these murder plans with other people. The work it took her to set up a new apartment and move quickly, nope. The ability to immobilize or change the victims schedule so it appeared that they were dead….mmmm…I don’t know that I buy that either. I do believe she can talk with complete psychosis and get other women to believe her plight.

I found it interesting that Ruth/Naomi continued to see the “blue eyed man” often and that she fixated on him until he was removed. Also, I noticed that when Amanda was looking at the photos of the blue eyed men that had been killed at how she said how similar they looked. I was waiting for a sperm donor to appear and that all of these men were brothers :) I felt like there should’ve been more differences in these mens appearances. I’m over it.

Okay. I did NOT see that Billy was the original serial killer and attacker of Naomi and it got me so good! I mean, it was a little interesting that we had a new character introduced and I really should’ve given him more thought as to why he was there, but his cover was so good! I easily believed the story he told Amanda about him being a victim as well.

He seemed to be a genuinely nice guy, but isn’t that real, how some serial killers behave?

Again, I’m like Ruth, you’re just going to walk a fruit basket up there and shoot the whole family and the child? You are messed up! And she attacked the door concierge…hmmm. ; I kind of felt like I wanted better plans from the author from Ruth’s end, but I think she was devolving. So no reasoning really needs to be there.

Billy gets alone with Naomi because Amanda hated those kind of elevators…this is an emergent situation. You don’t walk up what…12 flights of stairs in a situation like this.

And then Billy takes his brown colored contacts OUT and I was like WHAT??? I loved that Naomi was stopped, maybe in a twisted way, but really, she needed some mental health.

What did you think about the letter that Billy sent Amanda telling her how he took out Crone, the guy who killed her daughter? What a nice guy right….? I feel like that letter put him at huge risk but I loved reading it as a reader to get things wrapped up. Maybe it even made me like Billy a tiny bit more…ugh, but I can’t believe I’m saying that. I don’t think a real serial killer would care enough about another persons plight to go kill their target. Billy would’ve been much more self-consumed. But I’ll allow it. It made for a GREAT wrap up of this psychological thriller!

I think I’m going to go back and read his first Eddie Flynn book, the Defense. Thirt3en was #4 in this series and I read it fine without knowing the previous books or characters. Kill For Me Kill For You is a stand alone.

I think you’re fine to leave a comment with spoilers, only people who read this far down will get to them! I’d love to hear your thoughts.

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