Reviews with content warning for Murder - The Fields

I really enjoyed this thriller! I loved how the main character was female & how it also drops in and out of lots of other characters. This really reminds me of detective dramas on tv such as Mare of Easttown. I’m excited that this may be the first book in the series so will definitely be getting the next one! Really enjoyed and thought the whole agriculture concept was quite unique and not like other thrillers I’ve read. Do look up trigger warnings!

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acarter's review

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dark mysterious tense

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

Who knew corn could be so thrilling? THE FIELDS starts with a grisly bang and doesn't take its foot off of the gas from then until the heart-pounding conclusion. Sergeant Riley Fisher is surprised when a woman's brutalized corpse is found in a local cornfield--she's even more startled when the victim turns out to be her teenage best friend and again when other bodies begin piling up. What unravels is a thrilling mystery with an ever-expanding cast of suspects and ever-increasing stakes. A taught domestic thriller and tense political thriller rolled into one, THE FIELDS is the very promising start to a possible series of Riley Fisher novels. I'm sure I'm not the only one excited to see Riley tackle the darkness of her past!

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queerreadss's review

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dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? N/A
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

This book is an exceptional debut. For the most part, it felt well developed and tied up its lose ends. There was a lot of different plots happening at once in this book, inevitably leaving some things to be rushed. The plot lines did feel quiet busy in some parts but I did like how it came together and answered almost all questions going on in the book.

The beginning scene definitely was a strong way to draw readers in and build suspense that the author upheld extremely well throughout the book. The author was able to capture the true sinister feel of the grizzly crimes throughout the novel as well. The detail of the crimes and crime scenes were very disturbing and not for the faint of heart.

Main character Sergeant Riley’s traumatic past was told in parts that kept me guessing and was important to the plot as the sight of her old friend as a victim to an unknown killer brings decades of trauma to the surface. There was definitely a level of subplot about how exactly trauma can ruin your life and the lives around you which was, at times, extremely raw. Even still, I don’t know if the book fully handled that but it was an interesting dynamic as things in Riley’s smallish town just kept getting more and more bizarre.

All of that said, this book was very thrilling and did a good job of executing the multiple POVs. I wouldn’t say all of the twists/ how it came together was necessarily extremely hard to guess but the plot felt unique up until I realized a lot of the key points of the final solution were similar to the movie “Zootopia.” While obviously this book has a lot more adult themes and storyline, there were obvious similarities and it made the plot feel less unique once I realized it.

Overall, I would still recommend this book as a pretty decent thriller/mystery. This book will obviously be continued and I would be very interested to read the next one as well.

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Reviews tagging 'Murder'

The Fields by Erin Young

antoinetteshelf's review against another edition

readwithloz's review

lpdx's review

sairro10's review

flickingthroughpages's review

acarter's review

queerreadss's review