Why You'll Love This
The bodyguard who's supposed to keep her alive keeps almost getting her killed — and that's just the beginning of the con.
- Great if you want: procedural grit layered with genuine emotional weight
- The experience: fast and tight — McBain wastes nothing, ever
- The writing: McBain's clipped, streetwise prose reads like the genre's gold standard
- Skip if: you haven't met Carella — his grief hits harder with series context
About This Book
When a wealthy businessman hires a bodyguard to protect his wife from a vague, unnamed threat, it sounds like love. But when that wife survives two near-fatal accidents with her protector standing right there, the whole arrangement starts to look like something else entirely. Kiss puts Detective Steve Carella at the intersection of a chillingly domestic conspiracy and a devastating personal loss — the fallout from his father's murder — forcing him to hold himself together professionally while quietly coming apart at the seams. The result is a crime novel with genuine emotional weight, one that understands how grief and duty don't politely take turns.
McBain at his best is lean, sardonic, and deceptively human, and Kiss catches him in fine form. The dual narrative — a slow-burn domestic thriller layered over Carella's private reckoning — gives the book a rhythm that feels both procedural and intimate. The 87th Precinct series has always distinguished itself by treating its detectives as real people rather than plot mechanisms, and that quality is especially felt here. McBain earns the darkness he puts his characters through.
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