Type of bind: Mass Market Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN num: 9780380798414
ISBN number: 0380798417
Label: Avon
Manufacturer: Avon
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 320
Printing Date: October 01, 2000
Publishing house: Avon
Release Date: October 03, 2000
Sale Popularity Level: 693023
Studio: Avon
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Product Description:
In the intense heat of an oppressive Miami summer, crime reporter Britt Montero is ice cold, her writing relegated to the inner pages of the daily that employs her. But now there's a hot story she's just dying to get her hands on. A female serial slayer is luring men with sex, then mutilating and murdering them with a bullet that bears traces of her lipstick. Dubbed the 'Kiss Me Killer,' she has already murdered a sheriff and a powerful politician, among others, with her unique 'kiss of death.' Britt is determined to own the fatal femme's story. But it can only come at a deadly price, as a face-to-face meet goes explosively bad. And suddenly Britt Montero is the news, trapped in the company of a psychopath on a terrifying odyssey through the darkest heart of the Sunshine State…and heading straight to Hell.
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Rated by buyers 
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First there's Britt, our heroine. A self-actualized reporter enjoying her career and her on again/off again affair with a cop. Then there's Althea, the discarded trophy wife whose claims of being in peril are dismissed by everyone, including her family, as a pathetic plea for attention. Then there's Keppie, the sexpot serial killer (perhaps based on Aileen Wornoss -- sp?). What a thrill ride! As a fiction reader, I would have preferred it if Buchanan had tied up the loose ends a bit better -- was Britt ever investigated for the role as Keppie's accomplice, whatever happened to young Joey, does Keppie ever meet what seems to be her ultimate fate? But maybe the author handled it this way because this is how life is ... we don't always get the answers we want when we want them.
Rated by buyers 
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Edna Buchanan's prose style catches me up and sweeps me along, every time. It's descriptive, accurate, tense. And usually, Buchanan's plots and characters catch me up as well.
But not this time. Keppie, the serial murderess, is so wierd and wired that she is only an oddity, evoking no empathy from the reader. Her victims gradually lose individuality and become one senseless victim after another. And Britt Montero, erstwhile girl journalist, ends up being stupid and self-indulgent: she does anything for the story, including ignoring those around her who desperately need her help.
So much for the characters. It's also true that there is no mystery. Keppie is a mass murderer. Britt is a girl reporter in a dangerous situation. Joey is a small boy who exists merely to arouse our sympathy, and then disappears. The cops are after everybody. They catch Keppie, free Britt, and send Joey home.
But for the masterful prose style of Edna Buchanan, this novel deserves a miss.
Rated by buyers -
Edna Buchanan is a writer with a wonderful conversational style. Five minutes into reading her gripping non-fiction or her Britt Montero books and I feel like I'm back with an old friend. Buchanan doesn't disappoint in Garden of Evil. We are quickly caught up in Britt's hectic business life and almost non-existent personal life. We find her at a low point in her career as she is assigned tedious and demeaning stories and has to fight again to show her bosses what a great reporter she is.
This time she is on the trail of the Kiss Me Killer - a woman who murders sexually predatory men. Things begin to click and Britt is able to connect with the killer. After a disasterous meeting Britt is kidnapped by the killer and unfortunately this is when the books begins to fall badly.
The life seems to go out of the book as Britt becomes a passive captive watching the killer, Keppie, committ mayhem. Maybe there is an inherent problem in having the protagonist of a mystery series be quite so helpless. The same problem seemed to hurt L is for Lawless, Sue Grafton's only Kinsey Milhone misfire. There is also a hideous scene where Britt is aware that Keppie is going to murder a harmless man while Britt takes care of his very young child. Realistically there is probably nothing more that Britt can do but the scene is very creepy and the moral implications of Britt allowing the man to die without putting up more of a fight are never explored. The novel even ends passively with Britt having little to do with the capture of Keppie but again, uncomfortably, having some complicity in the death of another, far less innocent man.
Any book by Edna Buchanan is worth reading. But if you have never read one of her books before, I suggest that you start with an earlier Britt Montero book and come to this one later after you are already addicted to Buchanan's imminently readable prose.
Rated by buyers 
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The small stories at the beginning of this book were the best part. In the main story line, the killer's character was well developed and believable but Britt as a hostage just did not ring true. Although Britt admits, at the end of the book, that her actions were foolish and irresponsible, it left me wondering how such a smart and savvy woman wouldn't have figured this out in the beginning. The ending came as no big surprise. This was a fairly interesting character study, but as a mystery it was sadly lacking
Rated by buyers -
In her latest book, Garden Of Evil, Edna Buchanan's alter ego, Miami News police reporter Britt Montero (Buchanan's alter ego) gets lucky and follows a couple of Miami's finest to the site of a particularly gruesome murder. A politician of questionable character has been found in a rent-a-room-by-the-hour motel. He's been shot in very personal places, with pictures of his wife and kids left on strategic parts on the body. A Viagra pill nestles in the dead man's chest hairs. Britt would've normally been surprised at the killer's MO, but not this time. For the past few days, a woman knick-named the Kiss Me Killer been on the loose picking up unsuspecting men, having sex with them and then killing them in a most brutal fashion. Her public spree begins with a sheriff in northern Florida and continues as she makes her way south into Dade County, Britt's territory. Because she breaks the story in her paper, Britt eventually ends up in a dialogue with the killer, who wants Britt to tell her side of the story. In order to get the exclusive story, Britt agrees to meet with the woman. However, the police are involved, so Britt has to wear a wire. Of course, the killer is smart enough to outwit them all, and Britt ends up as her prisoner and the killing continues. The author lost me a bit when she brought an innocent child into the fray. Maybe she wanted the reader to know just how sick and twisted the killer was, but, to me it was a bit over the top. And I didn't really understand one of the subplots involving a former Orange Bowl Queen, but it didn't detract from the main story line. Although the ending was a bit unsatisfying, maybe the author was laying the groundwork for a sequel. I disagree with Britt's conclusion about there being "evil" gene that caused the killer to act out her fantasies. Maybe it was the sex at six years old that turned her...or her mother's past.... or the fact that she grew up unloved and unwanted...or maybe she saw what her mother did to those men...or maybe it was the taunt of the kids at school that very first gave her the lust for blood. I didn't have sympathy for the killer, but I could certainly understand how she might be wired differently from the rest of the world. I read the book in one sitting, and although I have serious doubt about Britt's reluctance to free herself from the hostage situation, I liked the story and look forward to reading more about her life as a reporter in a city that certainly contains a lot of dark and humid secrets yet to be told. What a joke of a book....I don't know if you publish PANS, but I thought I'd send it along anyway... Terry H. Mathews Reviewer
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