Disclaimer: I received this ebook from the author. Thanks! All opinions are my own.

Book: The Black Leather Belt Murders

Author: Chrystal Lee Stevens

Book Series: Standalone

Rating: 3/5

Recommended For...: murder mystery, thrillers

Publication Date: November 21, 2016

Genre: Mystery

Recommended Age: 18+ (sexual content, romance, death, gore, slight violence, language)

Publisher: Smashwords Edition

Pages: 242

Synopsis: Mandrake is lethal… Blondes are a poison, the belt is his cure.


FBI profiler Rick Sullivan finds himself on the trail of a serial killer known as Mandrake. Mandrake strangles blondes with a black leather belt that he leaves fastened around their necks. As the body count rises Mandrake evades Rick at every turn. He finally catches a break in the case when he travels to a small Virginia town and meets Destiny Malone.


Destiny came home a week before Christmas to find her roommate Sydney strangled in her bed. Destiny was planning to become a PI after college graduation but has now been thrown full force into her first case. She is determined to find out who extinguished the fiery redhead and not even sexy Rick Sullivan is going to get in her way.


Rick believes that Sydney was killed by a copycat. Especially when he discovers that her ex-boyfriend who has recently escaped from prison was the one responsible for his father’s murder. Rick believes that Destiny is now in danger too and will stop at nothing to protect her even if it means staring into the face of death.

Review: Overall, this was a good book. The book was thrilling and I thought the murder mystery was really well thought out. The book had good writing and great world building.

However, I did feel like the characters weren’t that well developed and the mystery was really easy to figure out. The blurb of the book is also too revealing for the book and I think it needs to be trimmed down a bit. The pacing was also very slow in the books.

Verdict: It was good, just not for me.