This review is offered in response to your request for me to take a look at your work. I am not an expert by any stretch -- with that caveat, I offer these comments to use or not use as you deem appropriate.
Good part is that I started reading it and then zoomed through because I had to know what happened next. I like when there are twists and turns. If you are looking for ways to improve an already strong story, that is what I shall endeavor to do.
The way I prefer to do the review is to assume that you already know that you have talent, a powerful writing style, and a unique idea. I really don’t think the warm fuzzies are what you want or need in this type of review. I think you want clues on where the potential weaknesses are and what can be done to improve the story.
Concept and theme
The teaser is a good. Personally, I don’t know the difference between a concept, theme and idea, just that they have to exist to have a good story.
Character:
Creating three dimensional characters is done very well. I got the quirks, conflicts and arc in both of your lead characters.
I appreciate that you use the odd spellings to clue me in on how the male lead might sound. I appreciate that you put the mind thoughts in italics.
I don’t know how to improve Killer 1. As for the lady killer, something has to be going on in her head that she is missing clues. It’s just that women are snoopy, tell me why this one is completely obtuse. You can do this in one sentence.
Structure and scene
There is a logical order that is brought in that. I did not see that you tripped up on tenses or timelines.
There are five senses that should come into play that make for stronger scene development. You have sight, touch, and sound down. Is there a way to bring in taste and smell without losing the big picture?
The one thing that screamed out is that it doesn’t make sense to me is that there are two dead bodies and the bodies evacuate when they die. How can you walk into a room and not smell coagulating blood, urine or excrement from the bodies evacuating? If there is blood, there should be blood splatter. Just seems off that there is none. I mean you go to the trouble of describing this pristine glass and polished office and there is nothing to show that the doctor or receptionist fought for their lives. The logical solution is to not have blood for the first two murders. You’ll have to do trip the light fandango to explain the blood in the last scene, but you can do it.
And then someone is knocking on the door during business hours? I mean I accepted it at first, but then at the end when the real new client came in, I was like, wait! What? I don’t get it. I don’t know – maybe it’s not important to the overall story anyway. If you can wrap that loose end up in one sentence that would be good.
Writing voice
Is this Third Party omniscient? When you jump heads, can you set it off in some other way other than extra space between the paragraphs? I don’t know if you can, just give it some thought. I know you have to jump heads in this piece, because people are getting killed off and introduced at different times, but there might be some other way to let the reader know when you are changing perspective.
Technical stuff: grammar punctuation
mid forties [mid-forties….do this for all the other instances where you use the word mid as a prefix]
He lead the way down the carpeted hallway. [led]
"Aah winter is knocking Ms. Arnold, it's chilly today eh?" he said as he opened her chart.[its]
He paused to look down from the sixth floor at all the unusal activity two streets away. [unusual]
" I feel so lost sometimes. So distant from my friends and family. [“I feel … you have an extra space between the quotation mark and the word I]
He was convinced that any second now Ms Arnold would see the blood [Ms. … I always put a period after a title designation. Occurs in multiple locations.]
There was a narrow shelf on the inside of the closet door and he checked the position of the nearly naked, lifeless body of the real Dr. Jamie Broussard, that he had put to sit there. [rework this sentence. It is clumsy.]
She must have watched some tired outdated self defense video in the eighties, [self-defense]
Dr Jamie Broussard. [Use Doctor or Dr.]
goodly, late Dr. Jamie Broussard [did you use this because the “recently departed” is too common? I don’t understand this turn of phrase. Sorry.]
Rating and genre: This should probably be 18+ because of the level of violence in the piece.
Favorite line. Dagnabit... [I don’t know why…maybe because it is so redneck and really plants the scene in redneck heaven.]
Suggestions.
This piece does not need a lot of rework. It is quite strong and well done, which helps. As I said above, give some thought on how to introduce taste and smell into this piece. When you do that it will be obvious where the scene goes slightly off, and the solution will present itself without any effort.
Thank you for asking me to do your review. As I said, these are just my opines, and you can use them or not. It’s all choice.
 
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