The game has little if any meaning to the scope of the book and serves only as a vehicle to showcase Abby. She is confronted later that first day with the appearance of her old friend Alicia Gerard and her daughter Jancy. They are on the run, and Abby agrees to hide them. Alicia disappears leaving Jancy in the care of Sister Helen.

The Feds together with lover Ben next appear, and it is apparent to Alicia that Ben has confessed all to the Feds with respect to what she really does, secrets she had entrusted to him. So much for Ben. The Feds claim Alicia was being blackmailed and she and her daughter Jancy were discovered by a maid in the hotel room of the murdered blackmailer, so that makes Alicia, of course, the prime suspect.

After they leave, Abby turns into a sleuth. While she is investigating the plot twists and turns, becoming less credible with each new direction Abby takes. In creating characters the author is less than careful in keeping her details about them consistent.

This jars as well as the changing stories of the FBI, the additional disappearances or kidnapping of young children and the unbelievable D-Day crisis the author uses to build suspense. Some of the plot tangents make little sense as well.

One of the least credible characters is Attorney Jimmy who offers to help on a first meeting and quickly becomes embroiled in the antics as they tangle with Gerry Gerard, one of the country’s real movers and shakers.

With characters always slightly out of focus, and the reader required to really suspend disbelief on the master plot, and sub plots as well, The Final Kill is a laborious read in many places.

--Thea Davis