Scan barcode
A review by kerveros
Deadly Messengers by Susan May
4.0
Disclaimer: I got this book free and was asked to review it in return.
I'll be honest, this book was shorter than I thought it would be - the edition I was given had a hefty 'thank you' section at the beginning, some pages from a different story and a short story at the end of it. I've nothing against shorter stories but in this case part of me wishes that Deadly Messengers had been longer and there had been less 'filler' things.
The main reason I wish this was longer is that when you hit the books climax things barrelled along (as they tend to do at those points) but I felt that perhaps a bit more time could have been spent there - either on the build up or the climax itself and would have made it just a bit more satisfying.
I also didn't buy into the relationship that developed between Lance and Kendall - I much preferred the Trip/Kendall relationship (possibly because the book spent time on it). To me the Lance/Kendall bit was based far too much on looks as opposed to personality. But still - that could just be me.
These niggles aside this was a very very good book. I liked the way the plot developed (I'll admit I was surprised when the identity of the mastermind was revealed), it seemed pretty natural and the mention of 'real world' things helped ground the book.
I may not have bought into the relationship development between the above characters but generally the character development was good - there isn't a lot of it as this is very much a plot driven book but what you get is solid.
The writing style is decent, I did get thrown out of the narrative at one point but I think that was down to the formatting and a sentence being split awkwardly over two pages but apart from that this really drew me in and grabbed my attention from the off.
I really liked seeing into the minds of the victims, I want to say this isn't something you see often and helped to add to the intrigue, but I don't read that much Crime/Thriller any more so I could be wrong. I also liked the motivation of the killer - it certainly struck me as something that could happen (though perhaps not in the way explored here!).
Overall, this is a really nice quick read. I would certainly re-read it again and shall keep an eye out for other books by this author.
As an aside - the short story "The War Veteran". I really wasn't sure about it at first but when I got to the end... very nice storytelling, an interesting take. It reminded me a lot of theFinal Destination films and actually... writing this out it makes me think of a plot line from Seven Psychopaths as well. In Final Destination (for those who have not seen the films) 'death' follows you so if you somehow avoid your destined time it will keep coming for you until you die (please note I saw the first... three films, I think a good number of years back so if later films change the reasoning and the above is incorrect I apologise). In Seven Psychopaths Christopher Walken's character is trying to help out Colin Farrell's character with his screenplay. Walken comes up with this idea that a character from the screenplay has just imagined his actions - his future life. To me this could be what the end of The War Veteran did as well - though it isn't stated explicitly. Interesting and clearly somewhat thought provoking I'd give this a 4 star rating also.
I'll be honest, this book was shorter than I thought it would be - the edition I was given had a hefty 'thank you' section at the beginning, some pages from a different story and a short story at the end of it. I've nothing against shorter stories but in this case part of me wishes that Deadly Messengers had been longer and there had been less 'filler' things.
The main reason I wish this was longer is that when you hit the books climax things barrelled along (as they tend to do at those points) but I felt that perhaps a bit more time could have been spent there - either on the build up or the climax itself and would have made it just a bit more satisfying.
I also didn't buy into the relationship that developed between Lance and Kendall - I much preferred the Trip/Kendall relationship (possibly because the book spent time on it). To me the Lance/Kendall bit was based far too much on looks as opposed to personality. But still - that could just be me.
These niggles aside this was a very very good book. I liked the way the plot developed (I'll admit I was surprised when the identity of the mastermind was revealed), it seemed pretty natural and the mention of 'real world' things helped ground the book.
I may not have bought into the relationship development between the above characters but generally the character development was good - there isn't a lot of it as this is very much a plot driven book but what you get is solid.
The writing style is decent, I did get thrown out of the narrative at one point but I think that was down to the formatting and a sentence being split awkwardly over two pages but apart from that this really drew me in and grabbed my attention from the off.
I really liked seeing into the minds of the victims, I want to say this isn't something you see often and helped to add to the intrigue, but I don't read that much Crime/Thriller any more so I could be wrong. I also liked the motivation of the killer - it certainly struck me as something that could happen (though perhaps not in the way explored here!).
Overall, this is a really nice quick read. I would certainly re-read it again and shall keep an eye out for other books by this author.
As an aside - the short story "The War Veteran". I really wasn't sure about it at first but when I got to the end... very nice storytelling, an interesting take. It reminded me a lot of the