Dead Perfect by Noelle Holten: A Desperate DC Races to Save Her Friend’s Life

This is one of those that I struggled for over a week to finish. I can only hope it’s coherent. The short version: Get this book. Read this book.

Dead Perfect by Noelle Holten Series: DC Maggie Jamieson, #3 Kindle Edition, 449 pg. One More Chapter, 2020 Read: December 30, 2020-January 2, 2021

What’s Dead Perfect About?

So, Dead Wrong left us with:

‘Just had a call come in. Police are on the scene. Body of a female has been found. Initial description sounds just like your friend Dr Moloney. I’m so sorry, Maggie …’

Obviously the important thing there is “sounds just like,” because it isn’t Moloney* but the body looks so much like her, that no one can be blamed for assuming it was Moloney. It’s quickly determined that it’s not her, but Maggie and Kate Moloney’s colleagues are having difficulty finding her. Making sure that the tension is as high as it can get in a first chapter.

* That’s not a spoiler, it’s in the blurb, which I should’ve read before diving in.

But even before we get to that, there’s the Prologue. It seemed ominous but fairly typical. Then I looked up one word that I didn’t know, orbitoclast, “A surgical instrument for performing transorbital lobotomies, resembling an icepick.” Then I reread the Prologue and got seriously creeped out.

Kate’s located (and given a talking-to about keeping her phone with her), the body is identified, but that just clarifies the issues at the heart of the investigation. We knew Kate had a stalker, and it seemed like the stalker was getting more intense, more threatening. There’s almost certainly a connection between the murdered woman, the stalker, and Kate. But Maggie has to prove that before they can act on it.

So Maggie and her team dive into the murder investigation, but Maggie’s attention is divided between finding out what happened to this woman and preventing the same thing from happening to Kate. This is probably not the best way to tackle the problems, but it’s not like Maggie is going to let either objective out of her hands.

And then another body is found.

Maggie’s State of Mind

It’s been a while since things were stable for our series protagonist, she’s been caroming off emotionally and mentally challenging cases for so long that she’s got to be close to unraveling. She’s barely had her chance to catch her breath from the events of Dead Wrong before she’s plunged into this race to save her friend’s life.

Add in the pressure of the press, getting used to the shift in the dynamic between her and friend/new boss, and her personal life—she’s not in the best headspace for this (or any) investigation. I think it’s starting to show, she makes some errors in judgment, she’s not dealing well with people, and unless this series is about the downfall of DC Maggie Jamieson, something’s going to have to change.

Although I can totally see Holten pulling off Maggie hitting rock bottom and trying to recover from that, come to think of it. So maybe that’s what we’re starting to see.

Supporting characters

I’ll touch on this more later, but one of the best things about the series is this great world that Holten’s creating. And it’s filled with some great characters, I have a few thoughts about some of the more prominent from this book.

We’ll start with DS Nathan Wright, he’s trying to acclimate to his new position and the way that changes the way he relates to and interacts with his team and friends—and seems to be doing it as well as you can hope. But he’s not perfect, and the transition isn’t smooth. It’s a minor thing, and I don’t imagine many authors would spend the time to do it, but I think it says a lot about the world that Holten’s creating that we see this.

That said, his team needs some more blood. and there’s a newly minted DC he’s got his eye on to help. Everyone’s very excited when Kat Everett is seconded to the investigation, and then she largely disappears. She’s eager, she’s bright, and then it’s like she doesn’t exist until the end when she plays a decent-sized role. It felt a little strange, is all I’m saying. Also, I’m not sure anyone needs a series where a “Kat” and a “Kate” play a major role, I’m just thinking someone needs a new nickname.

A reporter that made few friends, and probably a couple of enemies in Dead Wrong resurfaces. Julie Noble is well on her way to being a regular feature of this series, but for the moment, I don’t know what to think of her. I expect books four and five will solidify my impressions. She promises to be interesting—but I’m not sure in what way yet.

Lastly, there’s poor PC Bethany Lambert. She’s the unit’s go-to worker. Miscellaneous errands, thankless tasks, things requiring technological expertise, and more fall to her. I lost track of how many things Maggie threw her way to do—on top of her own assignments. I have multiple notes about how they’re working this woman to death, and even tweeted Holten about it. I’ve been assured that Bethany likes to be overworked, and that it’ll be addressed soon. But I’m telling you now if she snaps and takes out a lot of pent-up aggression on Maggie, I’ll be cheering her on.

The Killer

I’ve spent more than a week trying to write this post and failing because of this section right here. I still don’t know how I’m going to write something that I like and that doesn’t give anything away.

Sure, I could not talk about The Living Doll Killer, but Holten does something here that I feel compelled to write about. So I’m stuck. You’ll have to read the book to get the unsettling reason for the name, but that won’t keep me from using it.

We get a lot of information at some point in the novel from LDK’s own mouth. Now, I’m not sure the reader or police are supposed to believe everything told to them by LDK, but for the moment, I’m going to pretend I do.

Holten comes as close as possible to giving us a serial killer that the reader can empathize with. Sure, that’s not that close at all, but that doesn’t disprove my point.

I can say that I picked out the LDK straight off, but that’s all I got right. The “how” of the killings is bad, the “what” (abducting and killing) is disturbing, but the “why” will cast everything in a different light and somehow make it all worse (and, at the same time, almost understandable).

I can’t think of a serial killer with this kind of backstory and motivation. And for a fictional serial killer, there’s a strong “Yeah, I can imagine reading about this in the paper” kind of vibe. When I talked about her debut, I said that “Holten writes humans, not caricatures or types.” That applies to LDK, too.

The World Around Maggie Jamieson

This is the Maggie Jamieson series, and she is the core of it. But Holten has put her in the middle of a complex world. We touch base in this book with characters from the first two books—particularly from the first book, and we see a lot of growth and development. These people have put in the time and effort to change their lives and move on from the nightmares we met them in.

The way Holten has set up the series guarantees it won’t just be DC Jamieson and her boss (and the rest of her team) bouncing from investigation to investigation, they’ll brush up against these people, focusing on them for significant periods.

I really appreciate this design and am eager to see how it’s developed.

So, what did I think about Dead Perfect?

I got sucked into this story fast, and if anything above sounds critical, it’s only because I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about them (and talking about three or four niggling points out of one hundred is more interesting to write about than fanboying over the other 96 or 97). I was quickly invested in what was going on—and was soon thankful that it wasn’t Kate’s body in the opening chapter.

And yes, I was convinced that Holten had killed her off at the end of Dead Wrong.

I had many, many opinions about how Maggie and Kate were behaving over the course of this investigation (positive and negative), and sincerely wished that DS Wright would have sat them down in his office and talked some sense into both of them. I’m not sure that I usually spend quite as much time talking back to books about what protagonists are doing/thinking as I did in these pages.

And then the reveals about LDK? Didn’t see any of them coming (other than the one I mentioned). I love it when an author does that.

And then, just like she did last time, Holten doesn’t let you fully absorb and reflect on the conclusion of the novel without hitting you with an image that makes you want the next book now, not in a few months.

So what did I think about it? It was great. I need Book Four next week, and probably Five a couple of weeks after that.