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sheryljaynescullion's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
murmkurt7's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
emsreadingescape's review against another edition
5.0
One of the best serial killer books I’ve read. It is very graphic but the ending is so great. I really had such a great time reading this and I loved the multiple pov. I thought I knew where this was going but it just kept me on my toes.
ckshaw13's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
wishknots's review against another edition
1.0
Awful, boring police procedural with every bad trope you could think of thrown in. Plus, the detective is gaslighting her husband and acting like the victim when she is sleeping with her boss. I hated it.
tbailey23's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
saadiyya_reads786's review against another edition
4.0
Looking forward to the next book in the series.
paulabrandon's review against another edition
3.0
Inspector Anjelica Henley is still scarred by her near-death experience with Peter Olivier, a serial killer known as the Jigsaw Man (no, he doesn't devise traps for his victims), when she captured him. Two years later, murders are committed that are just like Olivier's crimes, but he's in prison. While Henley and her team are certain it's a copycat and that they haven't imprisoned the wrong man, they must figure out if Henley is pulling the strings from within his cell, or if it's a new killer acting alone. Which means Anjelica must face Olivier again.
Another serial killer thriller that is more police procedural. Although, thankfully, many of the subgenre's tropes are downplayed. While there is some mention of the media, there are no pesky or vindictive journalists to be found, normally a trope that drives me up the wall. There is a supervisor who wants to pull the squad off the case, but it doesn't take up a lot of time. No ambitious colleagues seeking to one-up the main detective. No long life histories of characters who exist simply to discover a dead body. So I was very happy about all of that.
However, despite those pluses, there is absolutely nothing new to be found here. It's yet another serial killer book in which the author seems to think the killer is much more interesting than he actually is. We keep getting told how charismatic and manipulative Peter Olivier is, but I never got that sense from him on the page itself through how he spoke or acted. The book jacket comes with a lot of comparisons to "The Silence Of The Lambs", and I don't know what that achieves. It has been more than 30 years since "The Silence Of The Lambs" was released. There have been hundreds upon hundreds of renditions of that same plot since then, and this book doesn't offer up any new twists on the theme whatsoever.
Main character Anjelica is hard to like. I suppose she's supposed to be edgy, and thankfully doesn't come with a ridiculous haunted backstory like the protagonist of M.J. Arlidge's books, but why am I rooting for her? She's bitter. She's nasty to everybody around her, particularly the trainee she's supervising. She puts her job before her family, despite saying she doesn't. She cheats on her husband. All in all, she's awful!
The pacing is sluggish. Every time we get a new development, possibly an exciting one, the book dies in the ass again as we get a lot of technical detail about, for example, connecting a phone account to a bank account, or something like that. This is a problem that crops up all the time in a police procedural. Authors want the story to be authentic and as close to real life as possible. Police investigations are long-winded, tedious and full of dead ends. But that's not what I want my fiction to be! I mean, really! I don't mind the author taking some liberties in order to keep proceedings punchy and interesting.
There are strands left dangling at the end of the book. Not my cup of tea. The author says on Goodreads she's writing the sequel. Although this was better than a lot of police procedurals I've read, I don't think it brings anything near fresh and original enough to the table for me to give a second story a go.
Another serial killer thriller that is more police procedural. Although, thankfully, many of the subgenre's tropes are downplayed. While there is some mention of the media, there are no pesky or vindictive journalists to be found, normally a trope that drives me up the wall. There is a supervisor who wants to pull the squad off the case, but it doesn't take up a lot of time. No ambitious colleagues seeking to one-up the main detective. No long life histories of characters who exist simply to discover a dead body. So I was very happy about all of that.
However, despite those pluses, there is absolutely nothing new to be found here. It's yet another serial killer book in which the author seems to think the killer is much more interesting than he actually is. We keep getting told how charismatic and manipulative Peter Olivier is, but I never got that sense from him on the page itself through how he spoke or acted. The book jacket comes with a lot of comparisons to "The Silence Of The Lambs", and I don't know what that achieves. It has been more than 30 years since "The Silence Of The Lambs" was released. There have been hundreds upon hundreds of renditions of that same plot since then, and this book doesn't offer up any new twists on the theme whatsoever.
Main character Anjelica is hard to like. I suppose she's supposed to be edgy, and thankfully doesn't come with a ridiculous haunted backstory like the protagonist of M.J. Arlidge's books, but why am I rooting for her? She's bitter. She's nasty to everybody around her, particularly the trainee she's supervising. She puts her job before her family, despite saying she doesn't. She cheats on her husband. All in all, she's awful!
The pacing is sluggish. Every time we get a new development, possibly an exciting one, the book dies in the ass again as we get a lot of technical detail about, for example, connecting a phone account to a bank account, or something like that. This is a problem that crops up all the time in a police procedural. Authors want the story to be authentic and as close to real life as possible. Police investigations are long-winded, tedious and full of dead ends. But that's not what I want my fiction to be! I mean, really! I don't mind the author taking some liberties in order to keep proceedings punchy and interesting.
There are strands left dangling at the end of the book. Not my cup of tea. The author says on Goodreads she's writing the sequel. Although this was better than a lot of police procedurals I've read, I don't think it brings anything near fresh and original enough to the table for me to give a second story a go.