Shaken

Travelling back over a span of twenty years, detective Jacqueline “Jack” Daniels finds herself as a rookie entwined in the process of tracking a sadistic killer, code named “Mr. K”. The book twists back in time twenty tears, and then in a three-year increment to the current where Jack has not only identified the killer, but with no physical proof of his committing the crimes has now retired as a police officer. It is at this moment when she finds herself ensnared and captured by the very man she has been hunting for years.
Is he a monster, a killer-for-hire or just a little of both? His routine trademarks: putting salt in the wounds and placing a ball-gag in his victims’ mouth are ever-present. However the actual deaths have show more been routinely different—though a few evidently are favorites from the number of times they pop back up. After all, there are only so many ways to kill over one hundred people without repeating the method.
The details are gruesome and Konrath threads the story with sarcasm as thick and liberal as a street whore’s mascara in an attempt to slice through the horror. He expertly introduces enough humor into the storyline that stops the reader from running, screaming from the torture he laces the tale with. The dialogue is expertly woven. The scene when two detectives are sitting in the car eating dry cereal from a box will have you gagging along with them.
A no-holds-barred page-turner that will capture your rapt attention until the last page show less

I've enjoyed the series up to now but this book has less action, less humour and is far darker and more gruesome than the others, a bit too dark and violent for my tastes.

The narrators do a great job. Much as I've always disliked Dick Hill's narration of the Reacher books I can't imagine anyone else doing this series better.

Konrath uses a different format for the seventh book in his Jack Daniels series. Instead of a linear story, he gives us glimpses of the present, weaving that in with two separate timelines from Jack Daniels' past. I have to say that I am not normally a fan of this type of out of sequence writing but Konrath handles it masterfully. He ties the events together perfectly, giving a seamless transition from past to present.

This is Konrath at his best. Shaken had me riveted from beginning to end!

** I was fortunate to receive an advanced copy from Mr. Konrath, though that had no effect on my review. **

Joe starts the book with the following: that the reader has a choice…he’s trying something new and wrote the story out of sequence as well as writing it the regular way. He wanted to know what the reader thinks of each form. I started out of sequence since I don’t mind reading a book that way so long as I have a wee cranium’s up for the jump in time. Joe complies and I did fine.
This is a thriller in the finest sense of the genre. Mr. K is a killer who Jack has been tracking for 20 some years. The story goes back and forth through time, beginning with Jack’s realization that she has been abducted.
The rest of the book is bringing the reader up to date on Jack’s life over the past 20 years, going from rookie cop to private show more sector investigator. And hunting Mr. K.
I enjoyed watching her learn about Armani and Ralph Lauren clothes in the 80s when she mostly shopped at Sears.
What I like most about this series (and this author) is laughing and being freaked out in the same chapter. Dry humor that has me laughing out loud and squinching myself into my chair to get far away from the murder/torture scene being depicted on the page. That’s talent and a very good book.
Favorite characters…Jack definitely since she’s so sure of herself and she’s the good guy. Herb and Harry, especially Harry, since he makes me laugh. I surround myself with people like Harry. I do love to *snort laugh*. Herb is a sweetie and a good friend to Jack.
I read this in one day, peeps! It was difficult to put down, so I didn’t.
The book had a helluva WTF cliffhanger and I cannot wait to read STIRRED, the collaborative work of art of Joe Konrath and Blake Crouch, author of the extremely terrifying DESERT PLACES and LOCKED DOORS and ABANDON and SNOWBOUND…I have read one of these and working up nerve to read the rest. show less

Another great installment for the Jack Daniels series!

A backstory:

Jack is in dire straits within this story as she wakes up not knowing where she is or what has happened to her - all she knows is that she is in lots of pain. She knows she is in deep trouble when she learns that she is tied up with rope and she cannot see where she is located but she learns that she is in some type of storage facility.

Then it finally dawns on her just who might have her in his clutches and Jack knows that it will be no easy feat to escape this lunatic as her memory comes into sharp focus when she realizes that it could be Mr. K who is known for eluding capture as he slays victims left and right.

In the meantime while Jack is tied up in an unknown place, show more her partner (Herb) and her friends Harry and Phineas Troutt are hunting like mad for her trying to pick up some kind of trail of what happened to her and who is responsible for her kidnapping. It will be no easy hunt as all three of them start out clueless, but once they start going through all of Jack's arrests they finally come to a conclusion of who it could possibly be, but to find "him" will be another matter.

What happened to Jack and how did the killer kidnap her? Is the killer really Mr. K and if so, what are his plans for Jack? Does Jack's friends and partner find her in time? No spoilers here as you will need to read the book!

Thoughts:

This story took some time to really get into it even though it jumps right away with something happening. With this series so far I have been handing out five stars for each book because I would be staying up late into the night while I felt I was walking a tight rope most of the time with these stories. This book not so much.

Don't get me wrong - this is a great book but it has time jumps which I have said in other reviews that time jumping is rough for me as sometimes it throws me off of what is happening in the present and then having to remember what happens in the past to tie in with the present. This book though there are "two" time jumps - yes you read that right. Two jumps into the past - one time jump goes back twenty five years and the other time jump goes back three years - then you are shot forward back to the present. It goes like that throughout the whole book. Almost like clockwork - rinse and repeat back and forth to the end of the book.

So I read this book a little slower as I tried to stay up with what was happening twenty five years ago, three years ago and then into the "here and now". I know the author did it like that to tell the story of the "how and why" of what was happening to the character Jack, but two time jumps is a little too much. So that is why I dropped it down a star - even though there is a warning at the beginning of the book as the author goes into detail of why he is doing time jumps in this book and I thought "oh boy - just what I need", but I wanted to continue on with this series so I just plunged ahead and hoped for the best. I guess I was able to keep it all straight (amazingly enough) as I am writing this review.

As always the characters of Herb, Harry, and Phineas kept me in stitches with chuckles and laughter - there was no laughter with Jack though as she was in her tight situation so there was more of a somber feeling there. Otherwise this book kept me wrapped in suspense and intrigue. I am looking forward to reading the next book "Stirred" in this series. Giving this book four "Serial Killer Shake 'n' Bake" stars. show less

WOW. As the seventh book in this series, I should know by now that Konrath doesn't always tie up all loose ends. And BOY, he really doesn't with this one.

Unlike the other in the Jack Daniels series, this is a non-linear story, bouncing between three periods: 25 years ago, three years ago and today. The common thread is the killer(s) and their relationship with Jack. It was also, in my opinion, a little more gruesome than the others. The killers here were a little more ... I'll say inventive ... in their torture and killing of victims. As much as I want to see how the story ends (#8 in the series is the last, according to Konrath), I think I will have to wait a little until the bile that stayed in my throat throughout reading this one show more settles a little.

If you've read the others in the series, you will, of course, have to read this one. Recommended beach read. show less

Don't know how I ended up with #7 in a series of which I haven't read any of the first six, but this was a fun, quick little read. The killer's methods were some of the more grotesque I've encountered, but he was a tricky guy and I rate him reasonably highly as a bad guy. The detective (Jacqueline Daniels... yes, Jack Daniels) wasn't the most well-developed character I've come across, but I could tell I was missing out on a lot of her backstory, so it might be my fault for jumping in mid-series.