Books like Killing Red

We discovered Henry Pérez’ investigative newspaper reporter Alex Chapa in a 2009 ebook novella he co-authored with JA Konrath, in which he and Konrath’s police Lt. (Ms.) Jack Daniels collaborated in an interesting story entitled “Floaters”. The two authors repeated that feat in 2012 with the ebook novella “Burners”. Finally, Pérez wrote his debut novel starring just native Cuban Chapa later in 2012 – and for a first novel it’s pretty good.Chapa made his chops as a fledgling reporter when he scooped the arrest of serial killer Kenny Lee Grubb, who had slain nine children before a tenth victim escaped and led the police to him. After nearly two decades, Grubb’s execution is just days away when he asks for Chapa to come interview him and write an update. During their chat, he tells Chapa more killings have occurred and that the girl that escaped earlier is on the hit list. Naturally Chapa goes into high gear trying to locate the girl, nicknamed “Red” (hence the book title), along with working with an FBI buddy regarding the other names Grubb supplied.Unfortunately that interesting premise bogged down considerably in mid-book, almost to the point of boring, as Chapa drives all over creation trying to find Red and other various people that might shed light on these new circumstances. Though the suspense about Red is fairly well maintained, the “private-eye”-type hijinks by Chapa strain just about all credulity – especially the scene with him out on a window ledge.Edit some of the more incredible action herein, and cut half of the middle, and we might have something here – but otherwise, relatively mundane.