Sean Costello (1) (1951–)

I really enjoyed "Squall" by Sean Costello. The characters were evenly balanced, well constructed, and the story waited for no one. As a writer with screenwriting background myself, it came as no surprise that Mr. Costello has written numerous screenplays in addition to his other books. The essence of a good screenplay focuses on being as lean as possible while still remaining compelling. Every word advances the story forward. And Squall does just that. It keeps you turning the pages, and show more the end surprised me. Mr. Costello managed to write a taut story while avoiding most cliches. Very refreshing. show less

The world is full of novels about serial killers. It seems to be almost as popular a genre as zombies. I have shied away from such books, even though Amazon is full of free Kindle offers for books that get very high ratings. I got this book free from the author after joining his mailing list, which I did after reading his book Squall. Squall was a creative, extremely violent tale about drugs and contract killers and crazy girlfriends and birthday parties and lots of other stuff in a great show more Canadian setting. I enjoyed it a lot and gave it four stars, so I decided I would read Last Call, even though the subject matter was not something I would usually want to deal with. (Of course, like everyone else I read Red Dragon, The Silence of the Lambs, etc. But those books make the serial killer an intellectual celebrity and are not quite as full of stomach-churning details as this one is. Luckily, the book doesn't focus on the killer--known as the Dentist for his particular obsession with teeth. The scenes with the killer and his victims are extremely explicit, however. To his credit, the author warns the reader ahead of time. Costello works as an Anesthesiologist in his day job, and the book is inspired by an interview with a serial killer during his residency. The reality of serial killings may even be worse than what this book represents, in fact. Luckily, there's a lot of story to go along with the killings. Costello weaves in a tale of a daughter rediscovering the father her mother kicked out of house when she was an infant, depicts the father's alcohol and drug-strewn existence in the interim, as well as the daughter's ex-boyfriend's own addiction story. So there are lots of positive things here, mixed in with the terrible scenes of torture and violence. Of course, we know who is going to end up as the killer's next kidnap victim. Still, Costello keeps us riveted to the story, and the last half of the book moves very quickly. There are a few implausibilities and cliches here and there, but the author is a very good writer, certainly not an amateur dabbling with publishing since it's so easy to self-publish an ebook. But overall, this story isn't as slick or inventive as Squall, and for that I give it 3 1/2 stars. I would be very interested in reading some of Costello's other books, but I hope they won't be as dark and painful as this one. show less

This book has excellent pacing. It's exciting and keeps you captivated until the end without being pushy or making you feel like you're in a rush.

Despite the exciting plot and interesting characters, I was disappointed by the flat archetypes of the only two female characters in the story. The whore and the mother. All of the male characters go through some kind of development - even our main man, steadfast Tom Stokes, realizes he's capable of more than he seemed to be at the beginning. But show more the two women are the exact same from beginning to end. They are kind of badass characters in their own way, but there's zero growth for either of them, and very little depth.

Other than that little blip, the book is pretty stellar and I definitely recommend! show less

A Thrill a Minute

I was torn between giving this a 4 or 5-star rating but realized it was only balancing in the fact that I had thought I was getting a mystery but got a thriller. I'm not really a thriller girl but this was flat out full of it. I couldn't put the book down. There was bad language and blood and gore. There were lives taken and lives given. There were lessons learned and second chances. And, unbelievably, I even laughed during the YouTube event. Definitely glad that I continued show more to read this even after I discovered this was not the book I thought I was going to read. show less