The Poet (Samantha Jazz, #1) by Lisa Renee Jones

Jan 15, 2021 Farrah rated it liked it

The sexy little cover and blurb for this book made me think it was gonna be a wicked and intense thriller but it's actually a police procedural, and it's a pretty good one too 3.5⭐

There's a serial killer on the loose and as the body count keeps rising the only thing the victims seem to have in common is the piece of paper with lines of poetry that have been stuffed in their mouths.
The lead investigator in the case has gone mysteriously MIA so badass Detective Samantha Jazz takes over and sudden ...more

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Nov 12, 2020 Nilufer Ozmekik rated it really liked it

Another exciting, heart throbbing, gripping wild train ride!

A serial killer nicknamed “Poet” because of the written words who left behind during the crime scenes and Detective Samantha Jazz, a corrupt police’s daughter is assigned the case after the first detective investigates the case vanished into thin air!

Samantha knows about poetry and as soon as she starts digging more, getting closer to finish the puzzle the murderer behind she realizes she might know the perpetrator and from the begin ...more

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Feb 11, 2021 Mandy White (mandylovestoread) rated it liked it

Shelves: read-in-2021, net-galley

The Poet was a slow read for me. Not sure what it was but I really couldn’t connect with the main characters. It starts off with a murder in a bookshop so right up my alley. A serial killer with a love of poetry and an obsession with the lead Detective.

It felt like the police were so focused on one suspect for most of the book. The ending was ok but it wasn’t a book that I would want to read a sequel to.

Thanks to NetGalley and Entangled Publishing for my copy of this book to read.

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Jan 03, 2021 Chris C - A Midlife Wife rated it it was amazing

Shelves: mystery, contemporary-fiction, cop-fiction, reviews, thriller, suspense, entangled-publishing, crime

Oh yeah! Jones at a whole different level. Excellent cop thriller.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jones takes us on a journey that will grab a hold and take you for a wide ride with The Poet.

While it seems to start a bit slow and come off as a simple cop fiction novel, don't let that fool you. Typical of Jones, the further you get into this story, the more things change and twist around. What seems to be a dead-end all of a sudden becomes something more sinister and dives right into the psychological genre of a ...more

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Jul 21, 2020 Lisa Jones marked it as to-read · (Review from the author)

THE POET IS LIVE!
I can't believe this day is finally here! THE POET is HERE! It's on bookshelves everywhere (Walmart, Target, B&N, etc.), it's available on your ereader, and it's available to listen to (narrated by the amazing Scott Brick and Brittany Pressley).

This book is such a labor of love of mine. Yes, it's a thriller, but it very much has my voice intact. I hope you'll take a chance on this book and help share in my celebration this week!

Don't miss the amazing giveaway I have down below f ...more

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Nov 12, 2020 Ludwig Reads rated it liked it

3.5 stars.

The Poet follows a detective who takes on a case where the murder victim had been found with a piece of paper crumpled inside his mouth, containing a sinister 3-line poem.

This was a good read. The identity of the killer wasn’t as surprising as I’d hoped it would be but the police procedural part was well-executed.

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Dec 05, 2020 Dana-Adriana B. rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I like how the characters were presented, but I did not feel it's a thriller, more police procedural/crime. Detective Jazz has to solve a complicated case, a serial killer that loves poetry. Not many people understand pietry, thats why Samanta Jazz is called to find the killer. I liked the plit, but, in my opinion, to much talk, less action.
Thank you Netgalley for this Arc. ...more

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Feb 23, 2021 Elle marked it as to-read

Shelves: from-publisher, 2021

*Thanks to Entangled Publishing for an advance review copy!

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Jan 25, 2021 Nadine Bookaholic rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2021-books-i-read-for-a-challenge, goodreads-year-in-review-2021, uniform-police, favorites, genre-mystery-suspense, giveaway-entered, arcs-read2review-completed, not-available-for-loaning, 2021-conquer-your-tbr-challenge, 2021-big-bad-shhlut-challenge

Edge of your seat, heart racing suspense!

Have you read the Lilah Love Series by Lisa Renee Jones? If you have you're going to want to dive into this one as well. This series starts off with Detective Samantha Jazz being assigned a case to find a serial killer after the Detective that was on the case suddenly relocates to a different town. Sam has a special skill set that makes her perfect for this case, she knows her Poetry better than anyone else on the force.

There is a killer on the loose and ...more

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Feb 20, 2021 Vickie rated it liked it

I love mysteries, so I was happy to get this one to read in advance. My joy, however, was short-lived because the mystery fell flat for me. It was all a very dark story involving a quirky police detective named Samantha Jazz and a serial killer nicknamed The Poet. Samantha is basically a loner, with few relationships and kind of a flat character. The Poet is crafty and determined to capture Samantha in his net, since she is his ultimate victim. I liked the varying points of view, from Samantha t ...more

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Nov 12, 2020 Zita rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: other-arcs

A crime that is a poetic challenge…

A man is killed in Austin, Texas in a strange fashion, by a killer who leaves no traces. The assigned detective mysteriously leaves the force after just three days on the case and cannot be reached. The next detective is assigned for one reason, her employment records said she ran a poetry club in college.

Detective Samantha Jazz has not only an interesting last name, she has an appreciation for and a deep understanding of poetry. Her years of decoding the meani ...more

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Dec 11, 2020 Joan rated it liked it · review of another edition

Review of Advance Reading Copy eBook

A serial killer stalks the city, leaving a paper containing bits of poetry in the mouths of his victims. Austin Detective Samantha Jazz, assigned to the case after the original investigator vanishes, soon identifies a suspect and relentlessly sets out to prove her case.

But what if her suspect is not the culprit, after all? And what will happen when Sam finally realizes that the poetry messages left at the scene of each crime are messages to her?

Told from the v ...more

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Dec 08, 2020 Brittney rated it really liked it · review of another edition

This is a great page turner! It's fast-paced when it needs to be and slower-paced when it should be. I liked the relationship between Lang and Jazz, their dialogue was for the most part funny and has a lot of crude humor.

I will say that a lot of the book is spent on someone who is clearly not the correct suspect and a lot of bad goes down because of this mistake and I spent most of those sections saying (out loud) WHY ARE THEY GOING AFTER THIS PERSON WHO IS OBVIOUSLY NOT THE RIGHT PERSON!???

I fo ...more

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Nov 12, 2020 Caroline Bertaud added it

Shelves: dnf

After a prologue and two chapters of this book, I returned to NetGalley to check the reviews, blinking, confused. Not many feedbacks there, but then again, maybe this novel was recently added. I’d been drawn to this book by its eye-catching cover and its promising, intriguing blurb, and I want to be grabbed by it the same way—kidnapped, holding tight to my chair, my knuckles white, maybe breathing hard—but so far it’s not happening. 5% in and I already want out. This rarely happens to me. I pers ...more

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Feb 24, 2021 Carvanz rated it it was amazing

Shelves: abcd, mild-violence, thriller, mild-angst, mysteryish, tough-heroine, suspense, fbi-police, not-a-romance, some-action

Oh my gosh! This was one intense read!

POTASSIUM CYANIDE – HERITAGE CHEMICALS

Samantha was one gutsy heroine. I loved that she wasn’t so hardened and crude as some heroines in law enforcement are created to be. She was fierce enough to know she could get the job done, but never mean or rude to those around her. Her relationship with her partner and her ex shed a light on who she truly was inside and I liked everything about her.

Silhouette Of Dimly Lit Man In Hooded Sweatshirt, Dangerous Unrecognizable.. Stock Photo, Picture And Royalty Free Image. Image 46507008.

Silhouette Of Dimly Lit Man In Hooded Sweatshirt, Dangerous Unrecognizable.. Stock Photo, Picture And Royalty Free Image. Image 46507008.

This has a lot of drama to it. Once it starts there is no slowing down. It never bogs or gets repetitive. In ...more

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Mar 20, 2021 Blagica rated it it was amazing

Shelves: mystery, suspense, favs, 5-stars, crime, read-in-2021, netgalley2021

hate that life gets in the way when you want to tell the world how obsessed you are about a book. I LOVED THE POET! This is my second book by Lisa Renee Jones. I did read If I Were You in 2015 and inhaled it in two days and this has just reignited my need for more by the author. The Poet was an extraordinary gripping read that kept me on the edge of my seat the entire time from page one to the very last. I finished the first 68% in two days then life got in my way and I needed to put it down. Sa ...more

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Feb 18, 2021 Kristen rated it liked it

He watches her from afar, the master teaching the student. Sometimes he punishes her, other times her rewards her, all the time he tortures her.

The Poet leaves them naked and bound with poetry shoved in their mouths. A gift to Detective Jazz, a special message just for her.
The Poet is a serial killer obsessed with Jazz and as the bodies pile up, she begins to see, how deep this obsession goes.

The Poet is deeply disturbing, and a total mind game, that makes your head spin. The Passages writte ...more

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Jan 30, 2021 Marija rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Young detective, a corrupted cop daughter, is called to take over one murder case from a detective that vanished into thin air. It is potential serial murder where murderer is leaving lines from poems and she is the only in the police that has education in poetry.
From that point we have a police procedural story where Detective Samantha Jazz is solving The poets secret. with help of her partner and colleagues.
The murderer is watching her, stalking her, and murders that are happening are somehow ...more

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Feb 19, 2021 Jaymi The OC Book Girl rated it liked it

Police procedural/thriller - on book tour.

Detective Samantha Jazz has a new case and it’s because she has a poetry background. The killer left his victim dead with a few lines of poetry placed in their mouth. Her partner is Ethan Langford and they have a good working relationship. He’s protective of her because her cop father died and he turned out to be corrupt. The story had a lot of potential, a murder at a bookstore, poetry analysis and a smart female detective who lives on popcorn, wine and ...more

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Dec 30, 2020 Rubie Clark rated it liked it

Shelves: thriller, read-on-kindle, netgalley-2020

The Poet.... this book is a Detective thriller. Sam Jazz is chasing a serial killer. But little does she know he has plans for her!
I enjoyed this book. For some odd reason it took me awhile to finish it. I thought I was never going to finish it. LoL
The characters I just loved Detective Lang I absolutely loved his role in the story.
Sam & Langs relationship was nice (brother/sister) type. Even tho I found myself wishing they would hook up. (A can dream right)?
These were type of characters I cou ...more

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Feb 03, 2021 Carissa rated it liked it

Shelves: mystery-thriller-suspense, netgalley-arc-docs

Being that this is a murder mystery/thriller only it was ok. I can tell Lisa did her research and getting into the killers head...she really did a good job. Sadly I think we can all guess the killer from the prologue. It just wasn't surprising at all. I'll still check out Lisa's work. I LOVE this cover!

I received this book at my request and have voluntarily left this unbiased review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. ...more

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Nov 11, 2020 Shiraz rated it liked it · review of another edition

3.5 stars. I was invested in who the killer was, but I think the book could have been pared down a lot. A lot of time was spent on phone calls and dead end leads, which suggests that a lot of research went into how police handle such cases, but doesn't necessarily make for the best read. Halfway through, I felt as though I were reading in order to get to the reveal just because there was a lot of unnecessary footwork involved. This was a pretty straightforward serial killer mystery with interest ...more

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Dec 15, 2020 Ilana rated it really liked it · review of another edition

First off, I need to thank Netgalley for getting me a copy of this book soo soo early. I’m going to start off by saying that I had no idea that one of my favorite ‘Romance’ writers also wrote in other genres. Perhaps I should have dug into her more, but Lisa Renee Jones has managed to keep me so entertained over the years that I felt no need until I ran out of series to follow.

Anyhow, we have a thriller on our hands here, The Poet is a murder / serial killer mystery that takes so many different First off, I need to thank Netgalley for getting me a copy of this book soo soo early. I’m going to start off by saying that I had no idea that one of my favorite ‘Romance’ writers also wrote in other genres. Perhaps I should have dug into her more, but Lisa Renee Jones has managed to keep me so entertained over the years that I felt no need until I ran out of series to follow.

Anyhow, we have a thriller on our hands here, The Poet is a murder / serial killer mystery that takes so many different twists and turns. We start off years in the past at what likely is the beginning of it all, when we’re in a classroom watching a student struggle to read a poem, which them turns into a bullying situation after class and interestingly a dead body being found the next morning.

We fast forward into the future where our main character is a Detective who’s one of the best at solving murder cases. Detective Samantha Jazz is the daughter of the Police Captain who was just murdered 3 months prior, and the goddaughter of the Police Chief, so she’s connected but she’s gotten to where she is on her own merit. When she’s back from leave from her father’s death, she’s quickly back into things where she’s called to sub in on a case where the killer left a poem in the victim’s mouth, an no one knows what it means. Sam is a Poet Master of sorts, ran a poetry club in college etc, and now she’s putting all that good learning to use.

The journey in this book is a complex one. We see the road that Sam has to go down to heal from her father’s death, and on top of that, she learned that her father wasn’t the cleanest of cops so there’s the stigma that comes along with that. She’s also trying to find her footing when she’s not exactly sure where she fits in anymore. She’s recently in limbo in a relationship and she’s not sure who she can trust.

The research that our author clearly did to make this story come to life was intense. We watch the process of examining a case from all angles, from the cops to the ME to the DA etc. We also watch how they form their hypothesis of who’s the suspect and how to track them down. We’re drawn down path after path on certain characters, never quite knowing if they are the culprit or not. On top of this though, there’s the fact that the detective who was assigned to the case previously is now missing and no one knows where he’s gone and if he’s alive.

Characters that we want to believe on our side are set up to seem as though they could be dirty or suspect. There’s a detective named Jackson that Sam wants to bring into the team but she gets an off feeling and he’s always where he’s not supposed to be, and at the same place as the presumed suspect. making him suspect.

While they’re trying to solve this murder mystery, there’s also a bit of romance to keep things on the same tone as what we get from LRJ, although not nearly as ‘erotic’ for lack of a better word. Sam’s ‘ex’ of sorts, Wade, comes back to help both professionally and personally since he’s FBI. We see that relationship take on a new form and want to have hope for the future.

What I will say about this story is that the path to the killer uncovers quite a bit of interesting ‘stuff’. No one is innocent and yet there’s a surprise twist nonetheless. I think you guys should definitely try to find this book when it’s out in March because I could NOT put it down ...more

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Jan 17, 2021 Cinta rated it it was ok

Thanks to NetGalley and Entangled Publishing for letting me read an ARC of this book.

The premise was quite interesting and sounded exciting, and that's why I requested a copy of this book. But I had a hard time getting into it. It took me forever to read the first 25% of the book, because it didn't have a lot of action and it started sounding repetitive. It was also a bit confusing, to the point that I didn't know what they were talking about at times. Jumping from one case to the other, from on ...more

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Jan 31, 2021 Mags rated it really liked it

Shelves: crime, books-i-would-recommend, arcs-reviewed, books-out-2021

4.5⭐

The Poet is a well-written and plotted police procedural. That captured my interest from the start, as Detective Samantha Jazz takes over the hunt for a serial killer she has nicknamed 'The Poet'.

And with an interesting mix of characters, police politics, and the recent death of Sam's dad, who happened to be a dirty cop. This was a captivating read; and one that certainly kept me guessing.

Would happily recommend.

**I was kindly provided with an ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest rev ...more

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Nov 20, 2020 Alisa rated it liked it

There is a serial killer who leaves words of poetry in the victim's mouths. Detective Samantha Jazz is tasked with investigating this case after the previous detective goes missing. She names this killer The Poet. What she doesn't know though is that he is doing all of it for her.
I have mixed feelings on this one. Okay,starting with the things I liked. I really liked Sam as the protagonist. Cold and distant when she needs to be but still very human at heart. I liked her partner Lang and the dyna ...more

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Feb 15, 2021 BookNerdsBrainDump rated it it was ok

Short Take: Like a porn with no nudity.

Duckies, the weather is gross, this book was dumb, and I am over EVERYTHING. I’ve spent almost two weeks trying to read this thing, and I finally decided to just power through & hope it would redeem itself in the end, but it didn’t. The only good thing about having so little payoff is that there wasn’t much buildup either.

In The Poet, Detective Samantha Jazz (and I just can’t with that name, good grief) is hunting a serial killer with a fixation on poetry. Short Take: Like a porn with no nudity.

Duckies, the weather is gross, this book was dumb, and I am over EVERYTHING. I’ve spent almost two weeks trying to read this thing, and I finally decided to just power through & hope it would redeem itself in the end, but it didn’t. The only good thing about having so little payoff is that there wasn’t much buildup either.

In The Poet, Detective Samantha Jazz (and I just can’t with that name, good grief) is hunting a serial killer with a fixation on poetry. She’s joined by her muscle-bound partner Lang and her occasional boyfriend FBI agent Wade. Sam is also haunted by memories of her father, a crooked cop who was shot right in front of her.

Seem overly simple? It is. This book does not deserve the nearly 400 pages it has. Sam could have been an interesting character, but the author’s biggest mistake was writing Sam’s chapters in the first person. Because despite the thousands and thousands of words devoted to Sam’s thoughts, we never get a sense of her feelings. It’s page after page of what she does, and occasionally what she thinks, but never ever what she feels.

Sam and her partner flirt with each other a lot. Does she find him attractive? We don’t know, she never says. She loved her father, and stopped idolizing him when she figured out he was corrupt, but did she grieve when he died? Does she miss fun things they did together, is she still angry with him? No clue. (I should note that this book takes place about 3 months after her father’s death, it’s not exactly the distant past). It makes it impossible to engage with the character, to feel much of anything with or for her. To quote someone who shows about the same level of emotion - I really don’t care, do u?

Samantha is also unlikable and not in a fun way. She’s a woman cop, daughter of a disgraced cop, and that obviously comes with a truckload of baggage in the police department. Sam’s way of dealing with this seems to be to be pushy and rude to anyone she encounters. It would be understandable and even interesting if we saw a bit of the insecurity that usually underlies behavior like that, but nope. She just is one of those people who insists they are always right and refuses to hear anything to the contrary, but Ms. Jones lets her always be right. She’s an expert on poetry and profiling and some kind of semi-psychic who can actually SENSE EVIL and whatever else she needs to be or do at the moment.

I’ve mentioned a few dozen times before how boring perfection is in a character, right?

Oh yeah, and we’re told explicitly (and apropos of absolutely nothing) that Sam TOTALLY HATES overweight and out of shape cops. It’s definitely not in a body-shaming way though, you guys! But lest we all think she’s just some soulless basic pretty white girl who is grossed out by fat coworkers and uses the word “cute” to describe real estate (she is and she does), we’re told approximately 47 times that she really likes chocolate. She’s just like us, y’all!!

A bad good guy in a book could probably be sufficiently offset by a good bad guy, but we don’t get that either. The chapters from the killer’s POV are cheesy and lame. He’s a bad stereotype, a Hannibal Lecter ordered from Wish. Super genius, super rich and handsome and married with a wife and kids who don’t suspect a thing because although his obsession is uncontrollable, he can easily control it around them.

On the plus side, the chapters are super short, otherwise, it might have been even more of a slog.

The Nerd’s Rating: TWO HAPPY NEURONS (and does anyone have a recipe for a vodka and snow cocktail? This crap has to be good for something other than “cold, wet, and miserable”.) ...more

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Dec 15, 2020 Ilana rated it really liked it

First off, I need to thank Netgalley for getting me a copy of this book soo soo early. I’m going to start off by saying that I had no idea that one of my favorite ‘Romance’ writers also wrote in other genres. Perhaps I should have dug into her more, but Lisa Renee Jones has managed to keep me so entertained over the years that I felt no need until I ran out of series to follow.

Anyhow, we have a thriller on our hands here, The Poet is a murder / serial killer mystery that takes so many different First off, I need to thank Netgalley for getting me a copy of this book soo soo early. I’m going to start off by saying that I had no idea that one of my favorite ‘Romance’ writers also wrote in other genres. Perhaps I should have dug into her more, but Lisa Renee Jones has managed to keep me so entertained over the years that I felt no need until I ran out of series to follow.

Anyhow, we have a thriller on our hands here, The Poet is a murder / serial killer mystery that takes so many different twists and turns. We start off years in the past at what likely is the beginning of it all, when we’re in a classroom watching a student struggle to read a poem, which them turns into a bullying situation after class and interestingly a dead body being found the next morning.

We fast forward into the future where our main character is a Detective who’s one of the best at solving murder cases. Detective Samantha Jazz is the daughter of the Police Captain who was just murdered 3 months prior, and the goddaughter of the Police Chief, so she’s connected but she’s gotten to where she is on her own merit. When she’s back from leave from her father’s death, she’s quickly back into things where she’s called to sub in on a case where the killer left a poem in the victim’s mouth, an no one knows what it means. Sam is a Poet Master of sorts, ran a poetry club in college etc, and now she’s putting all that good learning to use.

The journey in this book is a complex one. We see the road that Sam has to go down to heal from her father’s death, and on top of that, she learned that her father wasn’t the cleanest of cops so there’s the stigma that comes along with that. She’s also trying to find her footing when she’s not exactly sure where she fits in anymore. She’s recently in limbo in a relationship and she’s not sure who she can trust.

The research that our author clearly did to make this story come to life was intense. We watch the process of examining a case from all angles, from the cops to the ME to the DA etc. We also watch how they form their hypothesis of who’s the suspect and how to track them down. We’re drawn down path after path on certain characters, never quite knowing if they are the culprit or not. On top of this though, there’s the fact that the detective who was assigned to the case previously is now missing and no one knows where he’s gone and if he’s alive.

Characters that we want to believe on our side are set up to seem as though they could be dirty or suspect. There’s a detective named Jackson that Sam wants to bring into the team but she gets an off feeling and he’s always where he’s not supposed to be, and at the same place as the presumed suspect. making him suspect.

While they’re trying to solve this murder mystery, there’s also a bit of romance to keep things on the same tone as what we get from LRJ, although not nearly as ‘erotic’ for lack of a better word. Sam’s ‘ex’ of sorts, Wade, comes back to help both professionally and personally since he’s FBI. We see that relationship take on a new form and want to have hope for the future.

What I will say about this story is that the path to the killer uncovers quite a bit of interesting ‘stuff’. No one is innocent and yet there’s a surprise twist nonetheless. I think you guys should definitely try to find this book when it’s out in March because I could NOT put it down ...more

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Mar 07, 2021 Dee Arr rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: detective

In the last third of the book, Detective Samantha Jazz thinks “…something about this doesn’t feel like the end. Something feels wrong.” That statement describes how I felt throughout the entire book.

The novel felt like it was simply following a chosen narrative, merely going through the motions as all the pieces were fit into a specific template. Samantha tells us all about who she is during regular info dumps. Overall, she falls into the category of super smart (at one point she states “I have In the last third of the book, Detective Samantha Jazz thinks “…something about this doesn’t feel like the end. Something feels wrong.” That statement describes how I felt throughout the entire book.

The novel felt like it was simply following a chosen narrative, merely going through the motions as all the pieces were fit into a specific template. Samantha tells us all about who she is during regular info dumps. Overall, she falls into the category of super smart (at one point she states “I have the highest solve rate of the department and one of the highest solve rates in the country”). This is supposed to set her up as a worthy adversary of the killer (who is also extremely intelligent). She continually examines her own motives but only in a superficial way, thus causing the character revelations to appear forced rather than functioning as natural occurrences.

Some might feel I am revealing too much about the plot, so those worried about potential spoilers should not move on to paragraph four. My overall feeling on this book is that it is predictable and that the police procedural scenes resemble those television shows and movies that might be entertaining but have few roots in everyday reality. It is also obvious when the author is pushing us in the wrong direction in order to set up the Big Reveal.

POTENTIAL SPOILERS: The errors in the book battle credibility. The author’s detectives are chomping at the bit, ready to arrest a suspect based on hunches alone and not a thread of evidence. Detective Jazz enters a murder scene first, then tells the CSI team they cannot enter until she has completed her personal search of the crime scene. Samantha also removes crucial evidence around in the crime scene, negating the effect of matching two different murders to one potential suspect. Additionally, her disregard for proper chain of evidence is mindboggling. If Samantha was truly in charge of the crime scene, her focus would have been more on observations and then preserving it rather than personally disturbing it. The conversation with medical examiner Hazel Lee would lead one to believe that those in Lee’s profession travel to every murder scene, while reality is that the majority of their work is performed away from the scene of the crime. Actions of the characters in this book reflect what television and movies would have us believe. And as there is no evidence against her main suspect, why would Samantha and her partner Langford talk seriously about shooting someone who was fleeing from a murder scene? Whether she shot while facing him or at his back, there was still no legal justification for doing so, yet Samantha more than once berates herself for missing this “opportunity.”

Ms. Jones sets up evidence to lead us in the wrong direction, but it’s so heavy-handed that a reader can’t miss that she is leading us in the wrong direction rather than dropping clues and allowing us to pursue the red herrings we choose to follow. I prefer when an author drops clues but they are left so casually, many times I miss them. Unfortunately, this did not happen in “The Poet.” Combined with convenient coincidences and the police procedural errors, it is difficult to award this book more than two-and-a-half stars.

My thanks to NetGalley and Entangled Publishing, LLC for a complimentary electronic copy of this book.
...more

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Apr 13, 2021 Mason Adey rated it really liked it

The Poet is a gripping first entry into a new detective series that I will be sure to return to once there are more available. After reading the description I was interested but I didn't get my hopes too high as some crime novels can be somewhat dissappointing at times however The Poet exceeded my expectations by a long shot. It had a great pace that kept me interested, as well as a highly enjoyable plot that had me double checking that my doors were locked at night.

Samantha Jazz was a pretty l The Poet is a gripping first entry into a new detective series that I will be sure to return to once there are more available. After reading the description I was interested but I didn't get my hopes too high as some crime novels can be somewhat dissappointing at times however The Poet exceeded my expectations by a long shot. It had a great pace that kept me interested, as well as a highly enjoyable plot that had me double checking that my doors were locked at night.

Samantha Jazz was a pretty likeable character who was only occasionally prone to "Everything Is My Fault" syndrome although considering the actual nature of the case she is investigating this is actually more understandable than in other books. I liked that she has a very strong personality and she doesn't have time for anybody's BS standing up for herself and speaking her mind on multiple occasions. It was enjoyable to get to know her and her somewat troubled recent history and thought the depiction of the relationship with her father and the way she views him was very interesting. The interactions that she has with the people around her are always packed with snippy banter and Ireally enjoyed the dynamics she has with her partner Lang who has an equally strong personality. they are constantly butting heads over one thing or another but it never got frustrating. I actually thought that it seemed like a fairly realistic depiction of what two detectives might actually be like when they are on the job together and also navigating a friendship.

I listened to this book via Audible and I thought that both the narrators were pretty good although I have to say that I thought Scott Brick was the better of the two. The intensity that he brings to The Poet is palpable, It really did come across as creepy because he always sounds so animated, excited and passionate. Britney Prestly also did a very good job and for the most part I thought that she brought a likeability to Detective Jazz. I think that when Jazz is being sarcastic and witty or determined and emotional it works really well but unfortunately I did feel that it was difficult to distinguish the male voices from one another and occasionally I thought one character was talking when it was an entirely different one. I feel like I had learnt to tell the subtle differences by the end of the book though.

I thought this was a wel thought out, tense and exciting case and if this is the first entry I am very excited for what comes next. My one complaint, other than the fact that Jazz refers to herself as a badass on multiple occasions and I hate it when characters do that, is that the ending came very suddenly and I felt like I had whiplash from the brakes being slammed on. I'm willing to forgive that though because of how much I liked the rest of the book. I would highly recommend this for anyone who is a sucker for a good detective story. ...more

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