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A review by michael_benavidez
Swine by Monica Vogel
4.0
Swine is a mystery novel in the vein of Silence of the Lambs.
And honestly it's kind of only tangentially related, because I don't have that much experience within crime/detective/serial killer novels outside of true crime events as narrated by an author who is all facts no emotions.
As a book on its own though it delivers very much on the mystery/crime aspect. Following the twists and turns had me enamored. Vogel excels when it comes to the precision of the crime scenes, of deconstructing a mystery to follow and let the readers find their way through it with the leads.
Between the fun illustrations and the analytical eye to each of the unique crime scenes, the messages left to decipher, I do think this was the strongest part of the story.
That isn't to say everything else was weak.
However, I did personally find the three leads falling into tropes. The lone wolf cop, the timid but smart newbie, and the civilian who has no reason to be involved but keeps fucking putting her foot in. And the reason I score this as a negative is that for a good chunk of the way through, perhaps 3/4ths(,) of the way, the tropes and cliches of how they worked and spoke was a tad bit irritating.
And I'll be honest, partway through I'd just kind of became blind to these characters as a means to an end. I had to follow them to see how the entire book played out.
THEN
Monica Vogel decides to turn the last fourths into a curve ball that really built some interesting dynamics, with some very unexpected twists.
A lot of these portions are bogged down by philosophical rants/explanations. They do a good job of pushing the story forwards, and to its point, but there's moments where it gets to be a bit too much, especially while the characters are in that state of "shut up and get me to the mystery" state.
Those negatives aside, as I said above, Vogel is able to get you on board with these moments as the plot drives off road and delivers a rather bleak and terrifying ending in its own right.
And honestly it's kind of only tangentially related, because I don't have that much experience within crime/detective/serial killer novels outside of true crime events as narrated by an author who is all facts no emotions.
As a book on its own though it delivers very much on the mystery/crime aspect. Following the twists and turns had me enamored. Vogel excels when it comes to the precision of the crime scenes, of deconstructing a mystery to follow and let the readers find their way through it with the leads.
Between the fun illustrations and the analytical eye to each of the unique crime scenes, the messages left to decipher, I do think this was the strongest part of the story.
That isn't to say everything else was weak.
However, I did personally find the three leads falling into tropes. The lone wolf cop, the timid but smart newbie, and the civilian who has no reason to be involved but keeps fucking putting her foot in. And the reason I score this as a negative is that for a good chunk of the way through, perhaps 3/4ths(,) of the way, the tropes and cliches of how they worked and spoke was a tad bit irritating.
And I'll be honest, partway through I'd just kind of became blind to these characters as a means to an end. I had to follow them to see how the entire book played out.
THEN
Monica Vogel decides to turn the last fourths into a curve ball that really built some interesting dynamics, with some very unexpected twists.
A lot of these portions are bogged down by philosophical rants/explanations. They do a good job of pushing the story forwards, and to its point, but there's moments where it gets to be a bit too much, especially while the characters are in that state of "shut up and get me to the mystery" state.
Those negatives aside, as I said above, Vogel is able to get you on board with these moments as the plot drives off road and delivers a rather bleak and terrifying ending in its own right.