BLOOD OF MY BLOOD

Jazz Dent continues to hunt serial killers, and this time the hunt is all in the family.

Jazz, son of notorious killer Billy Dent, Connie, Jazz’s girlfriend, and Howie, his hemophiliac best friend, were all in peril at the end of the previous hunt (Game, 2013). Jazz wakes up with a bullet in his leg at the scene of a deadly shootout with half of the serial-killer duo Hat-Dog. Connie wakes up a captive of Billy, and Howie wakes up in a hospital room waiting for his overprotective parents. Each must escape and work together when they can to find and stop Billy while trying to discover Jazz’s Aunt Sam’s part in Billy’s reign of terror. Can they do so and avoid the cops in New York City and the small town of Lobo’s Nod? Will Jazz be the next serial-killer Crow King—or will he die at Billy’s hand? And can Jazz find and save his mother? Lyga’s gruesome and at-times overwrought conclusion to his I Hunt Killers trilogy telegraphs its big, secret twist far too early. Though Jazz, Connie and Howie are realistic teens, few of the supporting cast act like real people. An incest subplot adds to the ick factor.

This conclusion does not stand alone, and it may make readers question their commitment to the trilogy as a whole.