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A review by gh_monroe
The Bride Collector by Ted Dekker
3.0
I picked up this book because I was drawn in by the title, the blurb, and the fact that it was listed under “Mystery”. The blurb said …
'A string of exquisite young women have been murdered by a single individual who leaves his signature with each body: a pristine bridal veil. FBI agent Brad Raines must turn to a most unusual source for help.'
I thought, Interesting, a thriller about a serial killer. The reality is that this book was a rather improbable love story about an FBI agent who falls in love with a schizophrenic, agoraphobic, institutionalized woman with a serial murder case as a backdrop. So the classification was deceptive. It was a book I never would have picked up had I known that it was a love story.
This story was essentially Aaron Hotchner goes to the Cuckoo's Nest to get The Dream Team's help in the hunt for a dime store version of Hannibal Lecter, and falls in love with a schizophrenic version of Mary Ann from Gilligan's Island … with some preachy stuff thrown in at the end for good measure.
Then there was the writing, which I felt was criminally overdone. Writers need to understand that we don't live our lives in a world with soaring prose and when we read a story, we want to live in the story. Mr. Dekker clearly has a fabulous vocabulary, but I didn't pick up the book to be thrilled by his abilities as a human thesaurus. I wanted to be entertained. I kept listening in the hopes that the story would get better and by the end, I was pretty much hanging around because I was rooting for the serial killer to do away with one or both of the protagonists … and if I was lucky, the author's desire to write. I gave this three stars because as disappointing as it was, if someone out there is actually looking for a serial killer/sanitarium romance … then they might enjoy this. I however, did not! Also, I could not, in good conscience rate this any more poorly than I rated Gun Games by Faye Kellerman (though in retrospect, I now wish I had rated Gun Games as two stars instead of three). It was equally displeasing.
'A string of exquisite young women have been murdered by a single individual who leaves his signature with each body: a pristine bridal veil. FBI agent Brad Raines must turn to a most unusual source for help.'
I thought, Interesting, a thriller about a serial killer. The reality is that this book was a rather improbable love story about an FBI agent who falls in love with a schizophrenic, agoraphobic, institutionalized woman with a serial murder case as a backdrop. So the classification was deceptive. It was a book I never would have picked up had I known that it was a love story.
This story was essentially Aaron Hotchner goes to the Cuckoo's Nest to get The Dream Team's help in the hunt for a dime store version of Hannibal Lecter, and falls in love with a schizophrenic version of Mary Ann from Gilligan's Island … with some preachy stuff thrown in at the end for good measure.
Then there was the writing, which I felt was criminally overdone. Writers need to understand that we don't live our lives in a world with soaring prose and when we read a story, we want to live in the story. Mr. Dekker clearly has a fabulous vocabulary, but I didn't pick up the book to be thrilled by his abilities as a human thesaurus. I wanted to be entertained. I kept listening in the hopes that the story would get better and by the end, I was pretty much hanging around because I was rooting for the serial killer to do away with one or both of the protagonists … and if I was lucky, the author's desire to write. I gave this three stars because as disappointing as it was, if someone out there is actually looking for a serial killer/sanitarium romance … then they might enjoy this. I however, did not! Also, I could not, in good conscience rate this any more poorly than I rated Gun Games by Faye Kellerman (though in retrospect, I now wish I had rated Gun Games as two stars instead of three). It was equally displeasing.