Twist and Twisted is the first book in the Doylean Jenks (DJ) crime series. The protagonist DJ Jenks is a private investigator who stumbles onto his latest case after curiosity gets the better of him and he picks up three playing cards that seem to hold a dark message. His investigation draws him deeper into a secret group who thrive on depraved acts of crime and relish in the twisted games they play.
This is an interesting plot with plenty of drama going on within its pages, and lots of twists and turns to keep the reader entertained. There are some quite predictable scenes for example DJ falling in love with the client who hires him, and I also felt this happened quite quickly which made me question the credibility of the romantic connection. However the author has included more of a backstory around their connection towards the latter end of the book which does go some way to explaining this. The Author has included separate scenes towards the end which connect into the main story but the readers were not aware of and would not necessarily have picked up on had the Author not included.
The cast of characters, particularly the antagonists are developed well, they are believable and do elicit an emotional response from the reader. Readers do care about the main protagonist, DJ, relating to his personal conflict and willing him on.
The story moves at a good pace building tension, the dialogue is relevant and there were no significant editorial issues which would impact on the reader and distract them from the story.
I award this first novel in the series a solid 4 stars.
