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A review by niakantorka
Kill For Me Kill For You by Steve Cavanagh
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-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
4.75
Goodness. What a thrilling ride. This is exactly what one looks for in a thriller and only rarely gets. Was it predictable and exaggerated at times? Yes. Did it take turns and twists I never saw coming? Also yes. This is not your run-of-the-mill thriller and I said ‘holy shit’ out loud at least four times while reading.
It’s good that I picked it up on my day off because once the story got going I couldn’t put it down. Honestly, I’m going to check out every single book by Steve Cavanagh from now on.
Okay a short résumé on the actual story:
There’s a guy killing women in New York but something happens when he tries to kill Ruth Galmer. It leaves a lasting mark on her and her husband Scott and shit hits the fan afterwards pretty soon.
Then there’s Amanda who looses her little daughter to a pedophile’s assault. Her husband kills himself because he was watching their daughter and turned around for just a few seconds. The perpetrator is a rich lawyer’s son and somehow gets out of any repercussions. Understandably, Amanda wants to kill said guy badly. With a restraining order to her name she meets a woman in a support group for parents who lost their children. That woman has got the idea to switch murders like in Hitchcock’s film noir Strangers on a Train (based on the book by Patricia Highsmith).
Then there are the New York detectives Farrow and Hernandez who investigate all the crimes of the above mentioned people.
You need to read for yourself how all of this is connected and seriously, even as a versed thriller reader you will be surprised by some of the things happening here.
I’ll take a quarter star off from full marks because I found a few happenstances too convenient and thought Farrow could have made the connection sooner as obsessed as he was with his cases. But please don’t get me wrong: I had the best of times with this thriller.
It’s good that I picked it up on my day off because once the story got going I couldn’t put it down. Honestly, I’m going to check out every single book by Steve Cavanagh from now on.
Okay a short résumé on the actual story:
There’s a guy killing women in New York but something happens when he tries to kill Ruth Galmer. It leaves a lasting mark on her and her husband Scott and shit hits the fan afterwards pretty soon.
Then there’s Amanda who looses her little daughter to a pedophile’s assault. Her husband kills himself because he was watching their daughter and turned around for just a few seconds. The perpetrator is a rich lawyer’s son and somehow gets out of any repercussions. Understandably, Amanda wants to kill said guy badly. With a restraining order to her name she meets a woman in a support group for parents who lost their children. That woman has got the idea to switch murders like in Hitchcock’s film noir Strangers on a Train (based on the book by Patricia Highsmith).
Then there are the New York detectives Farrow and Hernandez who investigate all the crimes of the above mentioned people.
You need to read for yourself how all of this is connected and seriously, even as a versed thriller reader you will be surprised by some of the things happening here.
I’ll take a quarter star off from full marks because I found a few happenstances too convenient and thought Farrow could have made the connection sooner as obsessed as he was with his cases. But please don’t get me wrong: I had the best of times with this thriller.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Child death, Murder, and Sexual assault