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jehan85's review against another edition
3.0
3.5🌟
it's a good read with really twisted, sick storyline. it got me thinking of the death from another angle.
.
the writting is around 2🌟..it's like the writer crammed a good story into a short one. the end of almost all the chapters are abrupt and most of the time it just hangs there. like i flip to the next page wanting to know more, and hey, it's a new chapter - new day.
it's a good read with really twisted, sick storyline. it got me thinking of the death from another angle.
.
the writting is around 2🌟..it's like the writer crammed a good story into a short one. the end of almost all the chapters are abrupt and most of the time it just hangs there. like i flip to the next page wanting to know more, and hey, it's a new chapter - new day.
poliver's review against another edition
dark
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.75
jubaju's review against another edition
2.0
“He might kill her, she might let him”. Was expecting some weird, twisted, obsessive love. Finally some non-vomit inducing romance? Alas! None of that.
We get a childish MC who never grew out of her “sarcasm and punches” phase, a very bland and boring love interest, and a killer who, while fascinating in the beginning, gets a total re-evaluation in the middle of the book and suddenly becomes completely unhinged, instead of cold and calculating.
The writing was bad, though I eventually got used to it. At times monotonous, other times frantic, it didn’t set a pace for the novel as much as give me a headache. Also, so! Many! Exclamation! Points! Rah!
They had me at the blurb and reviews, they lost me at the writing style and character un-development.
We get a childish MC who never grew out of her “sarcasm and punches” phase, a very bland and boring love interest, and a killer who, while fascinating in the beginning, gets a total re-evaluation in the middle of the book and suddenly becomes completely unhinged, instead of cold and calculating.
The writing was bad, though I eventually got used to it. At times monotonous, other times frantic, it didn’t set a pace for the novel as much as give me a headache. Also, so! Many! Exclamation! Points! Rah!
They had me at the blurb and reviews, they lost me at the writing style and character un-development.
emma_jade91's review against another edition
I was enjoying the story but wasn’t keen on the narrators voice. I’ll be continuing with it physically instead of via audio
fictionfan's review against another edition
3.0
Murder as performance art...
TV reporter Eve Singer is on the crime beat, so she's called to the scene of a brutal murder committed in the foyer of an office building, just feet from where people are passing by on the pavement outside. This is a murderer who likes to perform his gory crimes in public, and then stage them as if it were some kind of performance art. When he makes contact with Eve, at first it seems like a great thing – she'll have the exclusive story and it will give her career a much needed boost. But soon she realises that she's becoming caught up in the murderer's schemes, almost to the point of becoming an accessory...
First off, let me say that I love Belinda Bauer. And this book has in it many of the things I love her for – the great writing, touches of humour, some nice building of suspense and an original and dramatic climax. However, for me, this isn't one of her best. It feels derivative – there are touches of Hannibal and Clarice in the relationship between Eve and the killer, and heavy shades of Psycho over the storyline. Perhaps there's not much new left to say in the serial killer novel – certainly it's been a while since I read one that felt fresh. But the derivations in this one seemed so blatant that I wondered at points if she was deliberately referencing some of the greats as a kind of inside joke, but if so, it didn't quite come off, and simply ended up feeling rather unoriginal.
The structure also doesn't feel up to Bauer's usual standard. We are given biographies of the characters rather than being allowed to get to know them through the plot – whatever happened to 'show, don't tell'? Eve's father suffers from dementia and this is used partly to give some humour to the book – always tricky with such a sensitive subject and I felt it occasionally passed over into tastelessness. And while I thought the portrayal of his dementia was well done for most of the book, when it became part of the plotting in the later stages it crossed the credibility line and began to feel contrived and inauthentic, and I found myself feeling that this awful disease was being used for entertainment purposes rather than being given the empathy it deserves. The humour didn't work as well for me as usual, I didn't take to Eve much, and the amount of lazy swearing throughout became utterly tedious, not to mention Eve's need to vomit every time a corpse turned up.
On the upside, there are passages where Bauer achieves that delicious feeling of creepiness, for example, when Eve thinks she's being followed home in the dark, and it does have a great thriller ending which redeemed it a little in my eyes. I was also pleased that this murderer was pretty eclectic in his choice of victims, not exclusively butchering vulnerable young women. But overall, this is one I'm going to put down to an off day, and go back to waiting avidly for her next offering. I've given it three stars but, in truth, I think one of those stars is from a mixture of loyalty and the feeling that I may be judging it too harshly because of my perhaps overly high expectations. Because, despite this one, I do love Belinda Bauer. I can't help wondering in general if the pressure to get a new book out every year is really a good thing in the long run...
NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, Grove Atlantic.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
TV reporter Eve Singer is on the crime beat, so she's called to the scene of a brutal murder committed in the foyer of an office building, just feet from where people are passing by on the pavement outside. This is a murderer who likes to perform his gory crimes in public, and then stage them as if it were some kind of performance art. When he makes contact with Eve, at first it seems like a great thing – she'll have the exclusive story and it will give her career a much needed boost. But soon she realises that she's becoming caught up in the murderer's schemes, almost to the point of becoming an accessory...
First off, let me say that I love Belinda Bauer. And this book has in it many of the things I love her for – the great writing, touches of humour, some nice building of suspense and an original and dramatic climax. However, for me, this isn't one of her best. It feels derivative – there are touches of Hannibal and Clarice in the relationship between Eve and the killer, and heavy shades of Psycho over the storyline. Perhaps there's not much new left to say in the serial killer novel – certainly it's been a while since I read one that felt fresh. But the derivations in this one seemed so blatant that I wondered at points if she was deliberately referencing some of the greats as a kind of inside joke, but if so, it didn't quite come off, and simply ended up feeling rather unoriginal.
The structure also doesn't feel up to Bauer's usual standard. We are given biographies of the characters rather than being allowed to get to know them through the plot – whatever happened to 'show, don't tell'? Eve's father suffers from dementia and this is used partly to give some humour to the book – always tricky with such a sensitive subject and I felt it occasionally passed over into tastelessness. And while I thought the portrayal of his dementia was well done for most of the book, when it became part of the plotting in the later stages it crossed the credibility line and began to feel contrived and inauthentic, and I found myself feeling that this awful disease was being used for entertainment purposes rather than being given the empathy it deserves. The humour didn't work as well for me as usual, I didn't take to Eve much, and the amount of lazy swearing throughout became utterly tedious, not to mention Eve's need to vomit every time a corpse turned up.
On the upside, there are passages where Bauer achieves that delicious feeling of creepiness, for example, when Eve thinks she's being followed home in the dark, and it does have a great thriller ending which redeemed it a little in my eyes. I was also pleased that this murderer was pretty eclectic in his choice of victims, not exclusively butchering vulnerable young women. But overall, this is one I'm going to put down to an off day, and go back to waiting avidly for her next offering. I've given it three stars but, in truth, I think one of those stars is from a mixture of loyalty and the feeling that I may be judging it too harshly because of my perhaps overly high expectations. Because, despite this one, I do love Belinda Bauer. I can't help wondering in general if the pressure to get a new book out every year is really a good thing in the long run...
NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, Grove Atlantic.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
whatjasread's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
knit_and_purl's review against another edition
4.0
A great, fast-paced thriller for anyone interested in one at Christmas time! Set during the holiday season, the story revolves around Eve Singer, a young reporter for a crime news station. After she reports on the murder of another young woman, Eve becomes the object of obsession for the killer. The opening scenes are particularly creepy, likely because of how realistic they are. The author does a great job of showing us how society has become immune to and enamoured of horrific moments in life, constantly wanting to catch the latest horror story on our cell phones. Eve is a sympathetic character who's dealing with a frantic, cutthroat job while handling a father with dementia. Would recommend this to readers of Jeffery Deaver or watchers of shows such as Criminal Minds.
kirsty147's review against another edition
4.0
I read this novel pretty fast, which, for me, means I really liked it. It was fast-paced, I liked the characters, the plot was pretty good. I particularly enjoyed the humour injected by the man with Alzheimer's, I thought that was a nice touch.