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Or for some may even make it better...Dean Koontz would love this book. Someone needs to recommend it to him. When two 18-year-old girls Alex and Rosie go missing while on holiday in Thailand it stirs up all kinds of emotions in Kate.... Kate’s son Jacob dropped out of university and went traveling to Thailand to “find himself“ with very sporadic communication with Home... Kate who is a reporter instantly gets herself on the case, and when the families travel to Thailand she is compelled to go too... but Kate has no idea what awaits her in Thailand, secrets and deceptions that will turn the reporter into the story! This is the second book I have read by Fiona Barton. And while I enjoyed her previous novel The Widow more... I will be looking forward to reading more from this author in the future. It's a terrific story, which will come as no surprise to people who have read earlier books by Robert Crais. But what is astounding is the development of Maggie, who becomes perhaps the book's central character. Certainly, she's the most intriguing character and at several points, the story unfolds from her point of view. It sounds sappy, but Crais makes it work brilliantly. Thank you to the author, the publisher, and Edelweiss for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
For me, this book was slow as in S-L-O-W. The format did not work for me. Plus, I really didn't connect with any of the characters and frankly, I wanted more of the girls and less of their parents. At least the girls were more entertaining. Overall we all enjoyed this story however a couple of us struggled a bit with the way the story was written. It took on a documentary feel to it. The chapters are short and the POV change often. For some us that made it bit harder for them to connect to the story and the characters. For the rest of us, it added some suspense to the story that drove the story forward for us. We recommend giving it a try and see where you might fall with your feelings on this one. After leaving school, Lynda La Plante briefly worked as a trainee at a fashion house before moving to London to pursue an acting career. She landed a role in a touring production of the musical Cabaret and later worked as a nightclub hostess to make ends meet. In the early 1970s, she turned to writing, penning episodes of popular British television shows like Z-Cars and The Sweeney. Two eighteen year old girls traveling alone to an exotic Thailand destination might mean trouble and it does...
the alternating chapters slowed the story down to a crawl with a lot of repetitiveness. Several characters were so similar I had trouble keeping them straight. Others were in the periphery and not developed at all. This is mostly a "classic" detective story, uncovering clues and knitting a big picture of a crime in linear fashion. The characters and police behaviour are quite believable, and the cop is heroic and is on a mission to solve the puzzle, and to save himself from his earlier mistakes. Many thanks to NetGalley, Grand Central Publishing and Hachette Audio for gifting me both a digital and audio ARC of the latest legal thriller by Scott Turow - a long time favorite - and wonderfully narrated by Helen Laser. 5 stars!
In the previous book in the series it became clear that the major recurring character, Sandy Stern, was making his final appearance, and in fact I assumed it would be the last of the Kindle County books. Turow has decided to continue them by making Pinky the central character in this one – Sandy’s granddaughter who has appeared in a secondary role in the last couple of books. Was this a wise decision? I’m not sure. While I never feel authors should restrict themselves to writing only about people like themselves, I feel it’s a stretch for a man in his 70s to successfully inhabit the head of a young female character in a society that has changed so dramatically since his own youth. Of course I’m also at the other end of the age scale from Pinky, so it makes it hard for me to judge how well he’s pulled it off. Personally, I found Pinky utterly tedious and stereotyped, to be honest – bi-sexual (of course), foul-mouthed, Mohawk hairdo, voraciously sexually promiscuous, ex-drug addict, thrown out of the police college, covered in tattoos (or ink, as the cool people apparently say), unable to form permanent relationships, etc., etc. Exactly the type of character, in fact, that has driven me away from contemporary fiction in recent years into the welcoming arms of vintage and the classics.The story started off a bit slow and the suspense builds as we start to see some twist and turns. We could see some coming and a few that we didn’t that left us thinking oh that’s a great twist. Adding some fun and entertainment to the story and our discussion. Nothing is immune from the ravages of time, not even the fictional universes created by crime writers. But what does an author do when a series protagonist gets to a certain age? Some defy the rules: Over 25 novels in Sue Grafton’s Alphabet series, written over as many years, Kinsey Millhone ages by less than a decade. Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch, on the other hand, is now a septuagenarian, fighting crime as well as a life-threatening illness. Pinky spent many years floundering professionally (including flunking out of the police academy) and personally, devouring various drugs before finally settling into a fairly respectable job working for Rik, dealing mostly with cases like workman’s comp, DUIs and bar fights. Rik’s shabby office and even shabbier cases are a big downfall from the kind of high-profile criminal matters Pinky became familiar with in Sandy Stern’s law office. Lucia Gomez, the female chief of police in the town of Highland Isle, has been accused of trading sex for promotions by three male officers under her supervision. Lucia is an old friend of Rik’s, so she comes to him for help.
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