alvina with blood of my bloodThe psyched woman flashing the hook ’em horns is my editor, Alvina Ling. And she is psyched for the same reason I am: Booklist just gave Blood of My Blood its first starred review!

Check it out:lyga_bloodofmyblood_hc

Lyga’s burial of the I Hunt Killers trilogy cements it
as one of the most ambitious thriller series in YA history, and the absolute best cliff from which teen readers can dive into the grueling world of adult crime procedurals. Given the violence of Game (2013), it’s no shocker that Jazz, Connie, and Howie begin laid up in the hospital. But there’s no rest for the wicked: in short order—this novel’s time frame is brutally truncated—Jazz busts out, determined to do away with, once and for all, his serial killer pop, Billy Dent. First, though, he’ll need to divine the truth behind “the Crows,” which appears to be a cult of murderers in thrall to the elder Dent. Jazz’s central conflict of using his dad’s sociopathic tricks without himself sliding into sociopathy is writ large here, with Jazz’s every evasive move against encroaching cops more morally questionable than the previous. You can’t stop reading, though—as before, Lyga’s strength is a plot that rockets with blood-slicked assurance and with the intercut speed (and splatter) of Thomas Harris’ The Silence of the Lambs (1988). Will Jazz end up a Crow or just another “prospect”? Here’s hoping the Edgar Awards retroactively presents Lyga a trio of statuettes for his chilling three-book answer.

A comparison to The Silence of the Lambs, the ur-text for the modern serial killer novel? Yeah, I’ll take it.