Hollywood Hit Men by Michele Dominguez Greene

2.5* Sadly, not a patch on the Emily Ray series. 

This book had a decent female lead thrust into an improbable situation on her first day of work - she catches a rapist and killer, and he wants her to be the only person he'll talk to. Cue pissed-off older cops, accusations of nepo baby - her detective father's retiring on the day  he starts - and her being out of her depth with just the briefest of briefings as to how to conduct the interview. Which turns into interviews, and her getting more conflicted with differing advice, until she goes out and out with flirting. I kid you not.

Her dad's an old-type cop who thinks nothing of roughing up suspects, doing what's needed to put bad guys - in his opinion - away. He's outdated and retires but decides to take up cold cases and win the day. He has a win but gets cocky, gets manipulated, stalks a new neighbour he suspects of having a fake ID and being a criminal from a past case (nothing adds up, but conveniently, a mental health condition is brought into play). He's abusive to his FWB ex-girlfriend, who ends up dead.

There's baby cop's rich boyfriend that she's not really that into. There's her new partner that may or may not become her new romantic interest. There's a bad-boy cop. There's another killer and rapist on the run. There's sex-trafficking. There's cops working against other cops, just because they're from different parts of cop'dom. There's frickin' too much happening in this book. Too many arcs, too much unnecessary stuff, especially where the dad's concerned. It needs a good editor, tbh. I'm surprised Thomas and Mercer didn't offer this up as a NetGalley ARC. 

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