I liked this police procedure book but didn't love it. I'm kind of over the trope of "awesome female detective who's the daughter of a dead dirty cop," which is the theme of another series I actually like better because that MC is much more real, flawed and relatable. Samantha Jazz (can you really take a character with a name like that seriously?) is one of those perfect people who is beautiful and smart and dedicated and of course a serial killer is obsessed with her because she's so much better than everybody else. 🙄 That said, once I got into the book I enjoyed reading it. The end left a ton of questions unanswered an the whole "why" made zero sense to me, but I'd read the next in the series.

I read a digital ARC of this book via NetGalley.

Samantha Jazz is a police officer in Austin, TX. Along with her partner, they take on intricate cases, requiring Jazz's profiling ability. Someone is murdering random people and leaving poems behind. Jazz thinks it is an English professor, who mistreats his wife and children; he has a secret, but it is not what Jazz thinks it is. The closer Jazz gets to The Poet, the more obsessed he is with her. How will this game play out? A little ponderous in places, but nice plotting and good dialogue keeps the reader going. Jazz is a complex character with some secrets. I will be reading the second in the series.

Great read! This is a story about a serial killer and the detective who has to solve the cases. Unknowingly to her, there is a personal connection. This books has several twists and is suspenseful until the end.

I love your mind Lisa Renee Jones. This thrilling murder mystery had me on the edge of my seat the whole time I was reading. I loved every piece of this book. The characters and their interactions were great, especially Sam Jazz. She was a perfect lead character. You never know who the killer is until the very end. The ending was excellent! I wonder if we will get another story with Agent Jazz? Fingers crossed.

What a page-turner. Could not put it down. Love the books that LRJ writes that include a strong heroine that takes no crap. Such a great job of sucking you into the who done it, then to the how is it going to end. Great Book!!!

Mysteries, thrillers and police procedural novels are my preferred genre so I opened THE POET by Lisa Renee Jones with great anticipation. Though this book promised to be all those things, it fell flat for me. It was all a very dark story, and I like dark stories but this one did not work for me, involving an unusual police detective named Samantha Jazz and a serial killer known for his love of poetry. Samantha’s character did not intrigue me, there was so much about her I just didn’t care about. The pacing was very slow for me, many times I struggled to keep reading. I enjoyed the police procedural and some of the characters but it really did not grab my interest as I had hoped

Detective Samantha Jazz

I've said it in other reviews, I think that adding the killer's voice to the telling dulls the suspense. This book is an excellent example. The story moves along quickly and convincingly by itself. Detective Samantha Jazz is sure there is a serial killer. She's tracking him. It seems like he might really be tracking her. All very convincing and exciting till we read what the killer has to say, set pieces that reveal the truth first by their presence, and finally by explicitly telling us what's going on. It's a real thrill killer.

Then also I think the killer might have been slipped into the story earlier and more gently. To me it's obvious who it is from the first hello. Oh well.

All in all I think this is a well written mystery that is a bit too heavy handed. A subtler approach would have made it a much more worthwhile read. I'm looking forward to future additions to the series.

Austin detective Samantha Jazz is on the trail of a serial killer who signs his victims with a few lines of poetry and little else to go on in this police procedural . It's not an accident that Sam's assigned to the case; she's more conversant with poetry than her partners, or anyone else in the precinct, for that matter . There's a lot of space devoted to an obviously innocent suspect, and the climax is, in a word, anticlimactic.

A solid 4 stars; well written and engaging, but not amazing. (I give few five star ratings). xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The Poet is a suspenseful thriller with twists and turns that keeps you turning the pages. I loved Detective Samantha Jazz and I'm hoping there will be more books about her and her cases!

4.5 stars- THE POET is the first instalment in Lisa Renee Jones’ contemporary, adult SAMANTHA JAZZ suspense series focusing on Detective Samantha Jazz.

Told from dual first person point of view (Jazz and The Poet) THE POET follows Detective Samantha Jazz as she is handed an ongoing investigation into a killer Detective Roberts has dubbed ‘The Professor’ but Detective Roberts is missing forcing Samantha Jazz to work through the information on her own. With the help of fellow detective Ethan ‘Lang’ Langford, and FBI Special Agent Wade Miller, Samantha begins to unearth a pattern of poetry and jazz, newly dubbing the suspect ‘The Poet’ leading our heroine to believe she is the inevitable target of a twisted mind.

THE POET is a fascinating, thrilling and suspense filled story of obsession and madness, betrayal and revenge. Lisa Renee Jones pulls the readers into a twisted, haunting and complex tale; a detailed and ever evolving story of mania and madness. For fans of the author’s LILAH LOVE series, there are many similarities that parallel one another.




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The Poet (Samantha Jazz, #1)
by Lisa Renee Jones

Wow what an unexpected twist. The reader is drawn down the rabbit hole on this mystery. I was lost on who was the real villain. The author really pulled the preverbal wool over the eyes of her characters. Sam Jazz is a great character with a lot of tragedy and history that causes her to be the strong heroine she is in the story. She is a remarkably outreaching character that draws the reader so far into the story you could almost imagine she is real. I hope to see more of this character in this series.

Fans of the Inside Out series will be excited to see that Lisa Renee Jones is embarking on a new series. With The Poet, she introduces readers to Samantha Jazz in a police procedural that is deep on character but a bit slapdash with plot coherence. Jazz is a troubled young officer who has had enough drama of her own and is now tasked with chasing down a serial killer who seems to be obsessed with her. The culprit seems to know a thing or two about Jazz and her fondness for poetry, so his signature is leaving victims with quotes placed in their mouths for her to decipher. Jazz is fully developed with an intriguing backstory, complete with clear defensiveness and biases. Jones has her character experience the benefits and drawbacks to her heavy use of intuition and laser focus during an investigation. She also sprinkles in chapters narrated by the killer that provides some insight into his motivations. The book seems abruptly bifurcated with red herrings and implausible consequences. The debatable authority that Jazz is given due to her “expertise” in poetry and her irrational behavior during her pursuit of the Poet are unconvincing and require a good deal of acceptance from the reader. Many who follow these types of fictional accounts would be more savvy about how procedures are followed than the supposedly competent heroine. The Poet is a decent exploration of how human fallibility can lead us astray even when the stakes are highest. Experienced readers of the genre will experience some frustration with how the author requests a suspension of disbelief that may not be worth the effort.

Thanks to the author Entangled/Amara and NetGalley for an advance copy of this book in exchange for an unbiased review.

Where is my movie? This edge of your seat thriller is one that I need a movie to ASAP! If you love things like Law and Order or Chicago PD then this one is going to knock your socks off because it was just that good. I am so glad that this is a series because I need more.

I loved the characters and the storyline development of this book. It was absolutely one of my favorites so far and I can't wait to delve in to the next one that this author writes. The storyline was simple, enjoyable, and entertaining.

OMG, I have read just about every book and series by Lisa Renee Jones , she’s one of my favorite authors but I have to say without a doubt The Poet is the most intense who dunnit book it kept me up nights till my eyes could no longer stay open ........ this has to be her best book yet!

Detective Jazz is assigned a case of a missing detective. The case belonged to Roberts and he investigated for two days then supposedly left town for a different job. There’s no way to get a hold of him. The murderer is leaving poems on paper inside the victims’ mouths and Detective Jazz thinks he has a god complex. Many investigators are helping with the case, from tracking cyanide purchases to surveillance. Jazz believes she has it narrowed down to a man she refers to as The Poet. I enjoyed the book until the ending. The mystery has an interesting base but feels rushed in the end. I would have liked a little more length added to the chase. The ending felt anticlimactic. 3 stars!

3 Hearts
SJ, Romance Junkies

THE POET is a police procedural mystery with the barest hint of romance by the impressive NYT bestselling author Lisa Renee Jones. I would not classify this as a romance and reviewed it solely as a fictional piece, as I often read thrillers and police procedurals.

Ms. Jones is a very talented writer, evidenced by her well-written prose. It's for her writing I gave the book 3 hearts. Unfortunately, it was a real miss for me. So much of the plot seemed forced. I had a tough time being afraid at all of "The Poet" and wondered how the main character, Detective Samantha Jazz, connected his poetry to the crimes so quickly.

I picked up and put the book down so many times, trying so hard to like it. The author is skilled with words, but the plot and characters didn't move me at all. I did like Lang, Samantha's partner, and they have some nice banter. But Samantha is hard to take. For a savvy policewoman, she makes a lot of leaps in logic and doesn't take her security seriously. She also treats her partner like crap, at times as if they had no friendship at all between them. The best parts of the story were few and far between and came from the villain's point of view.

The mystery isn't easy to figure out, but a character introduced farther into the story has a lot of importance that's just missing for most of the book. I felt like everyone was running in circles with the plot not going anywhere until the author needed us to see something.

I had a tough time taking THE POET seriously, and by the end really didn't care if the heroine caught her criminal. But this is just one reviewer's opinion, and others might like the slow, dragged out mystery and tough-as-nails cop with a score to settle due to a rough past relationship with her father.

Highly entertaining, emotionally thrilling roller-coaster filled with dangerous and intriguing charters, heart racing twists, unexpected turns and non stop action. An edge of your seat exciting journey from beginning to end and so hard to put down.

As the first installment in the Samantha Jazz series, THE POET does an amazing job in setting the stage for other books in the series with its many twist and turns, leaving the reader wanting more and surprised by the outcome.

This thrilling ride into finding the serial killer that is hunting police detective Samantha Jazz had the right mix of mystery, suspense and police procedural elements. It also had a few creepy moments as well as some lighter ones where you got to enjoy Samantha and Ethan camaraderie.

I enjoyed getting to know Samantha, some of her history and especially how her mind worked. She is a smart, stubborn woman extremely good at finding the smallest clues and analyzing a fresh crime scene. She had me fully engaged in the story with how she went about investigating this serial killer. I liked that the author made her flawed and vulnerable, which ultimately made me invested in her story.

I am definitely looking forward to the next book in the series. I can't wait to see what Samantha is up against next.