Alex MacLean (2)

I thought this was a very good thriller - - tight, concise writing and good description (sometimes almost TOO good in the autopsy scenes!) It read like an episode of Criminal Minds (and that's a good thing)

It was okay but started a bit slow for me. The end was a bit unexpected, anti-climactic but still good in a way. The book made me realize that criminals are victims also and I guess I liked the book for giving all the characters their own chapters thus seeing their own perspective. I loved Hoss, the misunderstood, lonely killer and I guess he got the ending he wanted. I just wished the book was faster in a way.

I have mixed feelings about this book, at first I thought a really detailed police procedural that was not interesting, though I was going to finish it because I had committed to reading a book set in Nova Scotia. Then at the ending I was surprised at my reaction this was much more a story of a cop being overcome by the emotions of his job. It became a story of psychological suspense.

This is a seriously mixed review. First, the good: Alex MacLean is at his best at crime scenes and autopsies. I don't know how accurate his descriptions are, but they are riveting. Now the bad: MacLean's dialogue and internal monologues are weak. At first, I thought the stilted speech/thought had something to do with the characters being Canadian, but I soon realized that I was being charitable; it's MacLean, not Canada. MacLean could certainly have used a better editor. He uses "parent's" show more when he should have used "parents'". "Toronto" is an international city, and does not need to be followed by "Ontario." The suspect enters a graveyard with a shovel and duffel bag, but leaves only with the shovel; the police don't find the duffel bag. What happened to it? A psychiatrist says, "the murderer is sorry for what they did," one of many examples of lack of subject/pronoun agreement. "It's never about the victim's..." Finally, motive was weak, and the driving force behind the plot was preposterous. Sorry, but I can't recommend this one. show less