Book ~ "Kill Fee" (2014) Owen Laukkanen

From Goodreads ~ The billionaire picked a heck of a way to die. 

On a beautiful Saturday in downtown Saint Paul, Minnesota, state investigator Kirk Stevens and his occasional colleague FBI special agent Carla Windermere witness the assassination of one of the state’s wealthiest men. The shooter is a young man, utterly unremarkable - except in his eyes. There is something very wrong in his eyes. 

And it’s only the beginning. The events of that sunny springtime day will lead Stevens and Windermere across the country, down countless blind alleys, and finally to a very flourishing twenty-first-century enterprise: a high-tech murder-for-hire social media website. But just who has the dead-eyed shooter targeted next ... and who’s choosing his victims? That’s where things get complicated.

Carla Windermere is an FBI special agent and Kirk Stevens a special agent with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA).  Over the last few years, they have worked a couple cases together and have become friends.  They have gotten together for a visit when they witness a wealthy man being gunned down in broad daylight.  They give chase to the sniper but he gets away.  Windermere and Stevens are then assigned to this case.

As more people start getting murdered, Windermere and Stevens discover that there is a killer-for-hire website and they start crisscrossing the country trying to get ahead of the mastermind behind it.

Though this is the third in the Stevens and Windermere series, it works well as a stand alone.  I had read the first one when it came out in 2012 and enjoyed it.  I came across the fifth one and read it in April (and remembered the series) so now I'm catching up on them.

I liked the writing style and found the story interesting, though it took me a bit to get into it.  The story is a bit unrealistic but I went with it.  It's written in third person perspective with a focus on the various characters.  I like the short and/or choppy chapters.  As a head's up, there is swearing.

I've never been a big Windermere fan and I didn't find her overly endearing in this book.  Despite Stevens being in love with his wife and them having children, there has been an attraction between Windermere and Stevens and they come close to stepping over the boundaries.  Then there's Mather's, Windermere's new younger partner, who is also attracted to her.  I found this love triangle distracting and it didn't add to the story.