Dead End Girl by LT Vargus & Tim McBain | Thriller Fiction Review

It's a DNF.

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Dead End Girl by LT Vargus & Tim McBain

Released April 2017

Source: Kindle Unlimited

See more @ Goodreads

I tried.

This has to be the most unthrilling thriller I've attempted to read in a while. It's about a rookie agent who always wanted to be an FBI profiler but instead spends her days doing paperwork. She gets called in on a serial killer case because the agent in charge appears to be sleepwalking his way through the job. So, she's basically his babysitter, I guess. Anyhow, it stars out when a dead woman is found in a grease dumpster and off we go.

From there, we learn every detail about everyone who has any slight moment in the story. The boring-est of boring details. What they're eating, wearing even sometimes how they're pooping. And what they ate to cause such a mess of a poop. I wish I were kidding. Agent Violet Darger does her best but let me tell you, her best is not very good and I kinda see why she was stuck doing paperwork. At one point, she drinks with a witness and then shares a hotel room with this witness and leaves her stuff lying around all willy nilly as she's passed out. Her cash. Her keys. Her badge. Her gun? I mean, COME ON. When she awakens from her stupor she realizes, oops, my car is gone and so is all my money. My bad 🫣 She is a tragic case of a TSTL character, if I ever met one. She gave me some major secondhand embarrassment.

And the killer is so cliche that even he admits his backstory is a cliche story. He hates women because mama was cruel and abusive and hit him with a coat hanger. Dude, can we get some therapy to deal with these mommy issues?

It's soon after that, at about the 34% mark, that I had to DNF this one. The 34% I read was dreadful. I’ll ask my friends how it ends, if they manage to finish.

Final Rating:  DNF

Publisher Plot Synopsis 

Her body is broken. Wrapped in plastic. Dumped on the side of the road. She is the first. There will be more.

The serial killer thriller that "refuses to let go until you've read the last sentence."

The most recent body was discovered in the grease dumpster behind a Burger King. Dismembered. Shoved into two garbage bags and lowered into the murky oil.

Now rookie agent Violet Darger gets the most important assignment of her career. She travels to the Midwest to face a killer unlike anything she's seen. Aggressive. Territorial. Deranged and driven.

Another mutilated corpse was found next to a roller rink. A third in the gutter in a residential neighborhood.

These bold displays of violence shock the rural community and rattle local law enforcement.

Who could carry out such brutality? And why?

Unfortunately for Agent Darger, there's little physical evidence to work with, and the only witnesses prove to be unreliable. The case seems hopeless.

If she fails, more will die. He will kill again and again.

The victims harbor dark secrets. The clues twist and writhe and refuse to keep still. And the killer watches the investigation on the nightly news, gleeful to relive the violence, knowing that he can't be stopped.

A page-turning thriller packed with heart-stopping suspense. Fans of John Sandford, Jeffery Deaver, Karin Slaughter, and Lisa Gardner should get to know Violet Darger.