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22 of 23 humans found the following review helpful.
Above Average Thriller
By Hippolytos
SUMMARY: Hannah Doyle is an mistreated wife on the run with her four year old son, who has settled in Seattle for the time being. Everything is going well; Hannah, a film buff, has a occupation at a video store which she loves, attends a film class at the local community college, and has the unconditional love of her precocious son, Guy. Soon, Hannah becomes the object of affection for three dissimilar men, all of whom, she realizes, are following her. While worrying that her husband has found her at last, she begins receiving videos of old movies cued to illfamed murder scenes; soon, people Hannah knows, even if only tangentially, get started dying in precisely the manner of the movies. This killer has decisive Hannah will be his next leading lady. Who may she trust?
WHY YOU’LL LIKE IT: Wonderful characterization; you come to know and care regarding these characters, specially Hannah and her son. The action sequences are taut and well-told, and the suspense is kept at a breakneck pace. The plot is introductory and terrifying. Genuine surprises ofttimes abound.
WHY YOU WON’T: Too a heap of chefs spoil the soup, and in this case, too a lot of stalkers spoil the story. It may be difficult to keep up with who is who in this novel frought with a plethora of characters. Some plot widgets are overly contrived, and seem to make the work longer than in needs to be.
BOTTOM LINE: Above intermediate adventure story from a writer who knows how to tell a good, and horrifying, story. Definitely recommend.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful.
Brilliant Pacing
By A
I’m not a huge fan of serial killer books or movies, but I am a fan of Kevin O’Brien’s version of the genre. This is the third of a series, following The Next to Die and Make Them Cry. The settings of the three stories are very different: one is set in Hollywood, another in a seminary, and this latest in Seattle.
All three books part O’Brien’s trademark features. Fast pacing that is pulse-quickening but not so fast that the reader is left at a sharp turn or ceases caring with regards to the central characters. The characters are down-to-earth-people that you may imagine bumping into in real life. His books read like well done movies. I surely hope that screenplays are circulating.
All in all, a outstanding page turner that I found hard to put down. Highly recommended!
7 of 8 persons found the following review helpful.
suspense at unbelievably high level
By Harriet Klausner
Rae Palmer knows she is being stalked, but no one believes her. When her boyfriend fell from a rooftop, the police ruled it an alcohol induced accident, but Rae knows better. The killer in the end films his murdering her for the duration of a sexual encounter. He leaves the video of the snuffing in the return box of Seattle’s Emerald City Video. Employee Hannah Doyle takes it home only to believe she has seen a real murder imitating a scene from the film Looking for Mr. Goodbar.
Hannah panics when she realizes that an individual accessed her apartment after finding a copy of Rosemary’s Baby in her VCR. Later she learns a customer, who was not so long ago nasty towards her, fell from a window just like a scene in Rosemary’s Baby. Hannah already worried that her abusive husband, whom she fled, will find her and their four-year-old son, wonders what to do. She believes that the killer plans to murder her and perhaps her son soon. She speculates that the killer is a student or professor both coming on to her in a film study class.
Though there is too much baggage hoisted by the heroine, readers without a shadow of a doubt will be grateful for this taut serial killer thriller. Each prime player seems real from Hannah whose fears geometrically increased to the professor hitting on her to her fellow student and at long last those working with her at the store. Readers never rather recognise who the killer is and why he fixated on Hannah until the end as Kevin O’Brien does what he does best: keeping the suspense at unbelievably high levels.
Harriet Klausner
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