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My Sister’s Grave by Robert Dugoni, Book Review

~ Veselin ~ Leave a comment

Tracy Crosswhite is the older sister in a family of sharp shooters. One day, the younger sister Sarah disappears after a shooting competition. A man is arrested and convicted of her murder, but there is no body. Tracy suspects that the wrong man has been framed. Twenty years later, the body is discovered.

For much of the book, this is a legal thriller in which Tracy tries to prove that the convicted murderer was framed, while somehow also looking for the real killer. Robert Dugoni drops clues about what actually happened along the way. I figured out a few details, but not the central mystery.

I enjoyed the book for the most part and ordered the next three. Maybe I over-reacted, I maybe next one would’ve been a better choice. It gets 4*/5 on my shelves.

Why four stars instead of five? I don’t know. I don’t like it when characters start doing horror-movie stupid things. Turning what was a pretty solid legal/crime thriller into something resembling a horror didn’t work for me. I also want to see Tracy using her sharp shooter skills. Hopefully, book two will deliver on that. It should be home tomorrow.

Therapy by Sebastian Fitzek, Book Review

~ Veselin ~ 5 Comments

Viktor Larenz is a psychiatrist, whose twelve-year-old daughter, Josy, got sick and either disappeared or died in a very obscure scene.

One thing is very clear from the start, Viktor Lanetz sees things nobody else sees. The main mystery of the book is what is hallucination and what is real. My guess, after 20-30 pages read, was that 100% of all non-Viktor characters are hallucinations. This is what the author implies. However, this book has 4.1 on Goodreads, and I’m sure that 90% of the readers made the same guess and wouldn’t have rated it 4.1 if it was that simple.

On top of that, the tagline, what happened with Josy, turns out to also be quite mysterious, and it will be solved.

This is not a realistic book. It’s dark noir, made-up, annoying, with plot twists designed to play with your mind. It has the vibe of Sucker Punch, if you remember that movie, and The Poison Artist by Jonathan Moore. However, it’s not quite up to that bar, just leaning that way from a close distance.

I rated it 3/5 on Goodreads because for the most of the book, it felt too obvious. The stuff that wasn’t obvious felt too made up. However, the Goodreads audience disagrees and rated this over 4, which is pretty high. In general, my interpretation for Goodreads ratings is as follows:

  • <3.9 – I’ll be disappointed
  • 3.9-4.2 – readable, usually good books
  • 4.3+ – rating unclear, skewed by fans

This book is well within the readable range and it is not bad but I didn’t like it. I will, however, try another book by the same author, this time with adjusted expectations. Hopefully, I’ll like the next one more.