Killer Instinct by Zoe Sharp – review

Just having read Zoe Sharp’s eighth and newest book, Fourth Day, the latest in the Charlie Fox series, I had the additional pleasure of reading the very first book in the series, Killer Instinct. In fact, this was the first novel published by Zoe Sharp, in 2001, and now issued for the first time in the United States. It is a fascinating look at the introduction of this protagonist, two years after she was “asked to leave” the British Army after a traumatic incident that left her physically and emotionally scarred

Now twenty-five years old, Charlie teaches self-defense to classes of women, many of them victims of abuse and residents of a Women’s Refuge. Shockingly, within a short time frame, two such residents are raped and murdered, with no clue as to the perpetrator. Not yet the proficient “close protection” operative she will become, Charlie is nonetheless very capable, using the skills learned in the Army though still without the Killer Instinct of the title.

Charlie also takes on a part-time job as part of the security staff at the New Adelphi Club, in nearby Morecambe, quite taken with its charismatic owner, but finds it more challenging than anticipated, in unexpected ways. When there is a third killing, Charlie becomes convinced that there is a connection to the club, if not to the rape/murders as well.

Just as compulsively readable as the later entries in the series, nonetheless I felt this book slightly weaker in two respects: The foreshadowing which ends the first two chapters, as well as the fact that I found myself at least a bit ahead of the protagonist, with the unsettling feeling of waiting for her to catch up. This is a small quibble. Reading the first in the series was delightful, and I am looking forward to the second, Riot Act, which Busted Flush Press is publishing in the US in September of this year.

Gloria Feit

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