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A review by noveldeelights
Snakes and Ladders by Victoria Selman
3.0
2.5* --> 3*
As someone who reads a lot of crime fiction, I think I’m getting to that point where I’m being far too picky about the books I pick up.
Case in point, Snakes and Ladders. This is the third instalment in the Ziba MacKenzie series, a fact I was completely unaware of at the time of requesting a review copy. For the most part, I think I got away with that as the author offers up quite a bit of information from the previous books to come to grips with Ziba’s character overall. And yet, not enough for me to get a good feel for her, to even warm to her or root for her. I didn’t particularly like her, even though I couldn’t quite put my finger on the why.
Dubbed as “Psycho meets The Silence of the Lambs”, the bar of expectations was raised to a level I don’t think this book ever achieved. Not by a long shot. For that the serial killers (yes, there are two) weren’t nearly terrifying enough. Or at all. Sure one of them manages to get into Ziba’s head but really, kind of been there, done that and the mind games failed to enthral me.
It’s obvious Ziba is distracted. It’s mentioned enough times too. She’s making it incredibly easy for Sange to manipulate her. Quite frankly, she should probably have removed herself from this investigation but okay, it’s fiction. Still, for some big renowned profiler, I thought she was often incredibly naive and stupid. It seems to me that there are things happening right under her nose that she doesn’t pick up on at all and it really started to annoy me. Also annoying, Ziba’s constant inner snark about a colleague.
It’s not all bad. There’s a nice pace to the story, the writing is good. I thought I knew quite early on who the active serial killer was but turns out I was wrong. I don’t know if there’s another addition to the series but there’s definitely enough there to do so. Some loose threads that need tying up. I’m sure the readers who were with this series from the start will enjoy this one a whole lot more than I did. From ratings I’ve seen I’m definitely in the minority with my opinion. But like I said at the start, I’m very picky and I personally think there are far more better crime fiction series out there. Entertaining, yes. But for me not really compelling, not suspenseful enough and definitely missing the thrill.
As someone who reads a lot of crime fiction, I think I’m getting to that point where I’m being far too picky about the books I pick up.
Case in point, Snakes and Ladders. This is the third instalment in the Ziba MacKenzie series, a fact I was completely unaware of at the time of requesting a review copy. For the most part, I think I got away with that as the author offers up quite a bit of information from the previous books to come to grips with Ziba’s character overall. And yet, not enough for me to get a good feel for her, to even warm to her or root for her. I didn’t particularly like her, even though I couldn’t quite put my finger on the why.
Dubbed as “Psycho meets The Silence of the Lambs”, the bar of expectations was raised to a level I don’t think this book ever achieved. Not by a long shot. For that the serial killers (yes, there are two) weren’t nearly terrifying enough. Or at all. Sure one of them manages to get into Ziba’s head but really, kind of been there, done that and the mind games failed to enthral me.
It’s obvious Ziba is distracted. It’s mentioned enough times too. She’s making it incredibly easy for Sange to manipulate her. Quite frankly, she should probably have removed herself from this investigation but okay, it’s fiction. Still, for some big renowned profiler, I thought she was often incredibly naive and stupid. It seems to me that there are things happening right under her nose that she doesn’t pick up on at all and it really started to annoy me. Also annoying, Ziba’s constant inner snark about a colleague.
It’s not all bad. There’s a nice pace to the story, the writing is good. I thought I knew quite early on who the active serial killer was but turns out I was wrong. I don’t know if there’s another addition to the series but there’s definitely enough there to do so. Some loose threads that need tying up. I’m sure the readers who were with this series from the start will enjoy this one a whole lot more than I did. From ratings I’ve seen I’m definitely in the minority with my opinion. But like I said at the start, I’m very picky and I personally think there are far more better crime fiction series out there. Entertaining, yes. But for me not really compelling, not suspenseful enough and definitely missing the thrill.