The body slumps over the steering wheel. Pools of blood going tacky on the dash. Two shots to the back of the head.A mafia-style hit in a small town.Special Agent Violet Darger must make sense of this savagery. Figure out how brutality like this could happen in rural Michigan.The victim had been living the American dream. A small-business owner who built a construction empire. Started a family. … built a construction empire. Started a family. Coached youth hockey. He seemed to have it all.
But his surface life didn’t tell the full story.
He carried dark secrets to the grave. Left clues which offer more questions than answers, clues that seem to lead Darger to Detroit.
In the city, she finds despair. Corruption. Decay.
Blocks of vacant buildings line the streets. Crumbling. Caving in. It resembles ancient ruins more than a modern American city. Concrete caverns waiting to be explored.
And there, among the rubble, she gets swept up in the hunt for a notorious hit man.
He kills for profit. Navigates the brutal world of organized crime. Harbors secrets of his own, albeit domestic ones.
He holds the answers to all of Darger’s questions, but only if she can catch him.
This pulse-pounding thriller will have you on the edge of your seat until the final page. Fans of John Sandford, Karin Slaughter, Harlan Coben, and Lisa Jackson should check out the Violet Darger series.
The books in the series can be read in any order, so grab Bad Blood and get started today.
Praise for the Violet Darger series:
“Un-put-downable! I cannot wait for this series to grow. If you love Sandford, Slaughter, Kava, Stelljes and Deaver, you’ll LOVE Vargus & McBain!” — Melody M
“The Violet Darger books are honestly the best detective novels I’ve ever read.” — Devin
“Vargus and McBain have, in Violet Darger, created a character that absolutely stands up with some of the greats — Phillip Marlowe, Dave Robicheaux, Elvis Cole, Charlie Parker, August Dupin, Jack Reacher, Harry Bosch, etc.” — Lucinda E. Snyder
“Wow, just wow! If you like scare-you-half-to-death mystery books this is the one for you. It starts with a bang and just doesn’t stop.” — Ada Lavin
“This series is full of suspense, action, and lots of murder.” — EllenAn
“Violet Darger is a unique, incredible character, and I immensely enjoyed taking this journey with her.” — Cat
“A rush of excitement, twists and turns.” — C. Munger
“Insightful, bloody. Page turner about the corruption of morality and warped thinking patterns.” — Bella from Readingnstuff.com
“Refuses to let go until you have read the last sentence.” — Bloodymummer
“Reading a Violet Darger novel always feels like coming home to an old friend—we hang out, we drink some coffee, we talk about her and Loshak’s personal lives, we interview victims’ families, we chase down some serial killers—all the stuff you normally do with your friends, except better. More exciting.” — eden Hudson, author of Revenge of the Bloodslinger
“These books are kind of a nice combination of crime fiction and horror. Ok nice might not be the right word to use. How about gruesome. Or thrilling? Terrifying? Gripping? They’re all that. They suck you in right away. And you just can’t put them down until it’s over.” — Melanie
“If you are a fan of Silence of the Lambs, this book is a spiritual successor.” — Amazon customer
“Vargus and McBain spin a fine tale with characters I want to climb inside — but not in a weird way.” — Jeanne Tarrantsmore
Excellent writing!
Words fly off the page and the pages turn themselves.
Great read!
Good characters and good dialogue.
Bad Blood: (Violet Darger FBI Thriller Book 4) – a review by Rosemary Kenny
Violet Darger is an FBI Special Agent, recovering from a serious bullet-caused head wound , who just doesn’t seem to recognise her own limitations and rushes in alone where more seasoned law enforcement officers would hesitate. This may be partly due to self-medicating with strong painkillers, that fog her brain and reduce her efficiency to stop and think before acting.
One of the dual narratives in LT Vargas and Tim McBain’s Bad Blood, is that of hitman Victor Jaworski, who’s linked to organised crime in the Motor City.
Its focus is on his back story, as well as on the gruesome murders, (from the start of the novel) which include scenes of graphic violence.
Violet’s storyline contains obfuscation, (from her boyfriend Owen, whom she’s driving away, by putting her career before their relationship), with a tunnel-vision focus on finding and convicting the Mob boss in hiding, while concealing the crippling migraines that have dogged her, following a shot in the head in her previous case.
Can she conclude the case and catch the ‘Striga’, (as one witness calls Jaworski) and unmask the hidden traitor in the Department’s midst and live to tell the tale?
Grab a copy of Bad Blood, the fascinating 4th book in the Violet Darger FBI Thriller series, by the dream team of LT Vargas and Tim McBain, to see what it’s all about!
THIS REVIEW IS FOR BOTH THE AUDIOBOOK AND EBOOK VERSIONS
Again great work from this narrator. All the characters are interesting and for a mafia story it’s great well written and graphic. I wasn’t expecting some of the content but it was a great experience. I recommend it!
I remember reading the book but not the story. I need to read the first couple of chapters to remember the story.
Excellent Mystery. A true page turner.
This book is about 2 FBI profilers after a mob hitman. The hitman kills a prominent businessman in a small town who owned a bar where mafioso hung out. The profilers suspect someone is leaking information to the mob. This leads to an ambush when they finally catch the hitman.
Action packed story of the mafia
gruesome details.
Excellent, very descriptive prose. Vey violent. I liked the book.
Started to read got bored before story got to point
This crime story has me on the edge of my seat more than once. It was suspenseful and had my heart racing a few times. I recommend to folks who like suspense.
I would recommend this book to anyone who could skip over the violence and just read the story. Learned about the plight of Detroit. It kept me interested all the way through.
Loves the characters! Really enjoyed the conversations. It was a little long where the character just had thoughts to themselves but overall very good.
Being from Michigan, I enjoyed this thriller set in Detroit. The characters were well-defined, and the events fast-paced. Violet is at times, her own worst enemy.
L.T. Vargus and Tim Mcbain have a wonderful series going here. I have read 1-6. Bad Blood is book 4 and equally as good as the rest. Great characters lots of action and intriguing storyline. I recommend all books by these 2 authors.
All I can say is WOW!!! This is a great continuation of the Violet Darger Series. Violet is having some physical issues from her run in with Stump. Yet we are not real sure if it is physical or mental. She still has some time left on her leave but Loshak calls her in and she goes. Her past comes back to haunt her. With her dealing with her past, she is also in the process of ruining her relationship with current boyfriend. In my opinion L.T. Vargus and Tim McBain write really AWESOME crime thrillers (I’m not sure what genre to put this book in). L.T. Vargus and Tim McBain know how to write intriguing characters that are flawed and vulnerable. There were twist thrown in to keep you guessing. There is suspense, blood, action and a little mystery. I’m not sure how the authors did it, but they wrote Jaworski so I found myself rooting for him. Authors wrote the ending to keep you guessing if there is another one coming. I believe there will be another one and I think we will see certain people back to be a pain in Violet’s side. There is some gory scenes in this book that brought very vivid pictures to mind. In my opinion if you like Criminal Minds with a little Stephen King thrown in then I would recommend. This kept me on the edge of my seat turning the pages. I received an ARC edition for my honest and voluntary review.
2 likes
The third in the series, Vargus and McBain knock it out of the park again. While this can absolutely be a stand alone, the character development would be lost to the reader in doing so.
In this installment, we see our favorite FBI profiler, Violet Darger, facing a new type of enemy in the world of organized crime compared to the serial killer genre we’ve seen in the past books. While Violet deals with her internal struggles of falling victim to two homicidal maniacs. The plot also steps away from having Violet personally embedded with the unsub This changes the dynamic and gives the reader more time to focus on the woman and not just the FBI agent. The story is dark and completely unpredictable which is what makes it such a great read. One of the best parts of this series are the characters. Violet has that realistic sarcasm that you can hold onto. Her interaction with the others is priceless. Vargus and McBain have done such a great job at breaking the tension with her quick wit and one-liners, its literary magic. (There’s actual audible laughter when I’m reading…along with strange looks) Personally, I cannot wait to see where they take the story line with her personal relationships. Team O or Team C ?!?!