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eowyns_helmet's review against another edition
1.0
I'm putting this under "adult thriller" even though there's very little thrilling going on. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that, if House had been a female author, this book never would have been published. Editors would have focused more on the average -- and way too lengthy writing -- and not on any supposed "machismo" of writing about war. It's Mad Max: Fury Road from the point of view of the grunting Max -- there's a story here somewhere, but at about page 60 I started using the book as a doorstop (cheap paper, not very effective). The Kills is bloated, dull, wandering, and very, very distant from the characters the readers are being asked to spend a fair chunk of their reading lives with (1,000 pages -- clunk). If you want international intrigue go back to experts (and less wordy writers) like [a:Ward Just|150037|Ward Just|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1256001060p2/150037.jpg] and [a:Ward Just|150037|Ward Just|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1256001060p2/150037.jpg].
bettyvd's review against another edition
4.0
Vier sombere verhalen die samen een complex beeld schetsen van de oorlog in Irak en Syrië en de geheimen die net achter de frontlinie woekeren. Verloren gelopen mensen in de woestijn van geld en bedrog. Er is een puzzel-element, dat gelukkig niet de overhand krijgt. Boeiende leeservaring.
tricky's review
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.0
The Kills is ambitious in its scope but just does not quite deliver. The four novellas that have been stitched together very roughly needed a greater connection. The conspiracy, the money laundering and intrigue all showed great promise but there was just the hook missing to keep your interest.
jeremyhornik's review against another edition
4.0
Large, messy, cool. A cover-up for a really large embezzlement of funds in Iraq precipitates the deaths of many, as does misidentification, happenstance, and ineptitude. In four books that never tie together neatly, which is probably part of the point. But some parts do, so.
It's a bit too literary to be a thriller... it doesn't really care about the things that thrillers care about... but it uses a lot of nice thriller, espionage, and crime genre techniques. And it leaves you in a constant confusion about things like what year is it, are these the same Germans as in the other book, which set of brothers are these, and so forth. But either it was good or after 1000+ pages I got the Stockholm Syndrome because I left with a positive impression.
It's a bit too literary to be a thriller... it doesn't really care about the things that thrillers care about... but it uses a lot of nice thriller, espionage, and crime genre techniques. And it leaves you in a constant confusion about things like what year is it, are these the same Germans as in the other book, which set of brothers are these, and so forth. But either it was good or after 1000+ pages I got the Stockholm Syndrome because I left with a positive impression.
raymondcushing's review
2.0
Waste of time. I thought it was fairly well written and the story line had promise, but the promise wasn't realized. After 1,000 pages, the ending is disappointing. If it had been written in 350 pages, I probably would have given it 3 stars.
drewsof's review
3.0
I'm a sucker for an ambitiously-scoped project - but I wonder why this novel was the way it was. Clear cues from Bolaño (2666) and a dash of Durrellian structure (THE ALEXANDRIA QUARTET) with spiritual homages to a ton of other things... I enjoyed parts of the puzzle, I particularly appreciated the focus being on contractors and innocents instead of the typical villains of war, but I wonder if I should've just watched MICHAEL CLAYTON again to get some of the same spiritual effect.
emilypaull's review
1.0
This book is intelligent, well written and fast paced... so why didn't I finish it?
The short answer is that life is too short to finish 1000 word tomes that just don't grab you. The longer answer will be posted on my blog later this year as part of the Long and Short of it series. (www.emilypaull.com)
- Emily(less)
The short answer is that life is too short to finish 1000 word tomes that just don't grab you. The longer answer will be posted on my blog later this year as part of the Long and Short of it series. (www.emilypaull.com)
- Emily(less)
nigellicus's review
5.0
Well, this was grim. I mean, it's brilliantly written, masterfully constructed and a dazzling literary accomplishment, but it's a bit of a trip through various modern hells, some real, as with the bleak desert vistas and the carnage of incompetence and corruption that is Iraq, or the existential mental disintegration of a man trying patiently, ploddingly, to vanish but who seems to end up multiplying.
There's a lot of vanishing in this book, people disappearing in various sinister ways, some victims, some perpetrators of appalling crimes, and some just fall away or become confused and almost forgetful. There's the hideously banality of the motiveless murder and the hunt for the various versions of one particular vanishee. There aren't any answers - mostly there are just disappearances and vanishments, but as the book moves from place to place and character to character there is most definitely a story, or a series of stories. None of it amounts to the significance one might hope for in a thriller - a deliberate thematic choice - but lives are nonetheless devastated in various ways. Mostly it's about lives being devastated, corrupted, poisoned, derailed by venal, random, indifferent, greedy or malevolent agencies, all a microcosm of the geopolitical world, really. So, a bit grim and unremitting, but written with brilliance and a deep, troubling intelligence about the ugly mediocrity of evil, even on a grand scale.
There's a lot of vanishing in this book, people disappearing in various sinister ways, some victims, some perpetrators of appalling crimes, and some just fall away or become confused and almost forgetful. There's the hideously banality of the motiveless murder and the hunt for the various versions of one particular vanishee. There aren't any answers - mostly there are just disappearances and vanishments, but as the book moves from place to place and character to character there is most definitely a story, or a series of stories. None of it amounts to the significance one might hope for in a thriller - a deliberate thematic choice - but lives are nonetheless devastated in various ways. Mostly it's about lives being devastated, corrupted, poisoned, derailed by venal, random, indifferent, greedy or malevolent agencies, all a microcosm of the geopolitical world, really. So, a bit grim and unremitting, but written with brilliance and a deep, troubling intelligence about the ugly mediocrity of evil, even on a grand scale.
scottish_kat's review
1.0
possibly the worst book I have ever picked up, I didn't even make it to the end of the first story. Flat uninteresting characters, a plot that meanders and has no real point to it. I knew it was time to give up when picking it up felt like a chore.