Tag: thriller

What Happened That Night by Nicci French

~ Veselin ~ Leave a comment

29 years ago, someone killed Leo. The murderer Taylor got convicted and stayed in jail for most of his life. He’s now out of jail under supervision. Out of the million things he could’ve done when out, he decided to gather a group of 10-ish friends in an Agatha Christie type event and tell them it was one of them who killed Leo. That wasn’t very smart of him and lead to another murder, for which he got immediately arrested.

I got strong Agatha Christie vibes, with clues dropped left and right, pointing in different directions. As it turns out, everyone’s business is dirty but not everyone is responsible for a murder. Will Maud O’Conner figure it out? Will you guess the murderer(s) before she does?

Nicci French writes the Maud O’Conner books in distinct parts. First part shows a terribly unfair event. Second part shows Maud O’Conner bringing justice. The first part in this book is clearly separated and about 100-150 pages long. This is actually better than the previous two books, where we had to suffer a lot longer to get to the point. I think the first part shouldn’t have been longer than 30-40 pages.

I gave the book 4/5 on Goodreads. It was quite good, after the first 100-150 pages, may even be my top pick for the month.

Stillhouse Lake by Rachel Caine

~ Veselin ~ 6 Comments

Just completed this thing, it was intense. 9/10 on the Matthew Reilly’s Contest scale. It was so intense that I’m not sure if I will dare to read the continuation. It also makes sense. Books like that tend to ignore the laws of physics, this is connected with reality.

Clear 5*/5 and a strong contestant for best thriller on my blog this year. Very impressive.

The Chesnut Man by Søren Sveistrup

A Chesnut Man
~ Veselin ~ 8 Comments

The smart homicide detective Naia Thulin has to supervise her colleague Hess, who messed up at Europol. They are faced with a case involving a serial killer who leaves rivers of blood and signature little chestnut figurines.

The book is engaging, well-written, but at the same time unnecessarily gory and disgusting. The main characters are repeatedly praised for being intelligent and brilliant, yet they constantly make silly mistakes that reek of foolishness and overconfidence. Real police officers probably make similar errors, but sometimes it becomes too much. Some of the mistakes feel like they’re straight out of a comedy horror movie—like when someone sits in front of a slowly moving steamroller for 15 minutes without taking the one necessary step to avoid getting hit.

The style is a mix of Chris Carter’s blood-soaked descriptions and the demigod hidden villain trope from The Mentalist. The Chestnut Man is excessively elusive, like Red John, but slightly more believable. His motivation is fully revealed and obvious almost from the beginning of the book. In this regard, The Mentalist falls short. Also, Hess is nowhere near as gifted as his TV counterpart, which makes the story far more interesting.

Naia Tulin is supposedly the lead character, but overall, Hess gets more page time and does more of the actual investigating.

Objectively, I’d rate the book around a 4.5—about 150–200 pages longer than it needed to be for a solid 5. What I didn’t like doesn’t make it a bad book, just slightly incompatible with my tastes.

I’d read other books by this author but maybe not right now.

A Deadly Influence by Mike Omer, Book Review

~ Veselin ~ Leave a comment

A Deadly Influence is a crime thriller about Abby Mullen, a hostage negotiator assisting with a kidnapping case. Somehow, the kidnapping is linked to a cult. Abby Mullen grew up in a cult and is still haunted by the massacre that brought it to an end.

Overall, the book is fantastic—well-written, unpredictable, and somewhat logical. I don’t often read fiction about events that could actually happen.

The only issue was that the publisher used a very tiny font size to save from paper. It was painful to read. They squished a 450-page book into 300 pages.

5*/5.

The Waiting by Michael Connelly, Book Review

~ Veselin ~ Leave a comment

The Waiting is Michael Connelly’s 39th book from the Harry Bosch Universe. Renée Ballard from LAPD’s Open-Unsolved Unit is going to chase a number of different cases at the same time, with the help of Maddie Bosch. Two of the cases are serial killers. Harry Bosch also makes a brief appearance. The avalanche of cases is something we can imagine from an unit that digs into the past and the entire series is plausible. It’s very satisfying because you read about multiple resolutions throughout the book.

Renée Ballard is my current most favorite character by Michael Connelly. She’s experienced but impatient. Doesn’t shy away from yelling at people. Relies on others to do the job. She chills by surfing, which puts her in difficult positions from time to time, including in that book. It starts with the theft of her belongings while surfing. She has no superpowers and doesn’t rely on Deux ex machina to solve the cases. I like the whole setup.

This thriller gets an easy 5*/5 Goodreads rating. It will be a hard thing to read a better book in January. The bar is set high.