Book Review: Death Sentence by Mikkel Birkegaard

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars..... I think.

Synopsis
A murder committed on paper, safely within the confines of a novel, is one thing. To see that one crime in the real world, is something else entirely...
Frank Fons is a successful crime writer. His novels, famed for their visceral description of violent death, have made him a household name. but now someone is copying his crimes. For Frank what once served a clever, intriguing plot twist has suddenly become a terrifying, blood splattered reality.

Frank unwittingly swaps a role of writer for detective. He must find out who is using his fiction to destroy his life, and why. What had once been a game is now a matter of life and death.

In fiction the bad guy always get caught, but in real life there is no such guarantee. And as frank knows, no one is promising him a happy ending...

My Review.
This book was given to me from Transworld Books. 

This is an incredibly hard book to review and I have been sat at my computer wondering what I want to say and how I can truly convey what I am thinking right now. 

You know the phrase 'It does exactly what it says on the Tin (Blurb)'? Well this book doesn't. By that I don't mean that it doesn't have a serial killer. It does. I don't mean that there aren't some truly grisly tails of murder, torture and death. There are. What I mean is that the story layout and it's main stance on this type of genre is totally different to what I expected and I am still unsure whether or not I liked it. I would say however that I devoured the book in a rate like I had never experienced a crime book before. I found that I was totally involved in all the emotions that Frank felt and all the experiences and problems that he put himself in. I felt hatred and repulsion for the man and then at other times I kind of empathised with him, and for that I would like to applaud Birkegaard. Unlike other people I found the book to be fast passed with short chapters. This like other books I have read lately, including another Transworld Book; Crippen, they had two narratives. One where you saw the life of Frank; From the beginning of his love of reading and writing, to falling in love, being a dad, to finding the demons that fame, fortune and power can bring and how those demons can change you and bring the life that you once had down.  I found this storyline good, the characters were well executed and all rather memorable. 
The other part of this was the storyline that you expected after reading the blurb. Frank who now lives alone gets a telephone call to say that a murder has been committed and that it looks like something out of one one his books. Frank goes to investigate and soon becomes aware that the murder is closer to home than what he first thought.  This then starts what becomes a race against time for Frank to find the killer... This part of the book let it down for me. I had read other reviews that said that this book was incredibly gory and just too much. I hadn't found this to be true until the last 20 pages. I have read a lot of crime novels and those pages will forever be etched in my mind. Maybe I have a high tolerance to scenes that were described in the book but it didn't put me off at all. What did put me off was the way I felt the author rushed through the later part of the book. I felt that many loose ends were not dealt with and that the last 50 pages were just wrote to finish the book quickly. The ending was an utter disappointment and I wish so much I could explain why I thought this way but because of the risk of a spoiler I cannot say more, but it was a major let down. I can understand why the ending was the way it was but for me as a crime reader I read crime for a reason, and the ending was an utter anti climax! I would love to hear from other people who have read this book and see what they thought.

This is why my review is quite a strange one and part of me still doesn't know what to give the book star wise, as I utterly love some elements but despised others.

Would I read another book by the author? Yes, yes I think I would.

Do I think that he is the cream of the crop when it comes to Scandinavian authors? No, I do not understand why some reviews have said that he is like Larsson (The Girl with the dragon tattoo) There are no similarities between the two. If he is is to be compared by any other author from Scandinavia I would say that it would be more like a Camilla Lackberg. I haven't got round to reading my Jo Nesbo book to compare that yet.

Book Review: The Bone Collector by Jeffery Deaver

Rating 
5 out of 5 stars

Synopsis
New York City is thrown into chaos by the assaults of the Bone Collector, a serial kidnapper and killer who gives the police a chance to save his victims from dea
th by leaving obscure clues. The cops go to Lincoln Rhyme, an ex-NYPD forensics expert left paralysed after an accident on the job. Rhyme reluctantly postpones his ambitions towards suicide and puts together a forensic investigation team, enlisting as his eyes and ears young police officer Amelia Sachs. Rhyme digs deep into the only world he has left - his astonishing mind - and slowly begins to narrow the noose around the Bone Collector. But the kidnapper is narrowing his own noose - around Lincoln Rhyme.

My Review:
I remembered that I had read this book years and years ago and had totally forgot most of the plot. I fell in love with the characters all over again. WHAT TOOK ME SO LONG TO RED THIS BOOK AGAIN??!!

I find that with Deaver he has all the right qualities to make a good crime novel. He has likable and memorable characters. He has some amazing and imaginative crimes. He also has more twists and turns that a Grand Prix race at Monaco. But yet has enough detail to make you think, god damn this writer knows his stuff and really has put some research, time and effort into it. I had struggled with the last few crime novels that I had read. Including Patterson, McDermid (Who normally never lets me down) and Lackberg. The Bone Collector was EVERYTHING these authors wanted to write. The ending was fantastic, and was just spellbinding write up to the very last page, even the last sentance!

For me he is one of the masters of Crime and I can't believe I left re-reading and carrying on with the series, for so long!! I will not wait so long to read the next one. I know this will not be my last Deaver book of the year.

Book Review: The Colour Of Death by Michael Cordy

Rating
4.5 out of 5 stars

Synopsis
In a quiet, residential neighbourhood of Portland, Oregon, an unknown young woman uncovers a shocking crime scene by inexplicably sensing the evil within its walls. To the police, she herself is a mystery. She appears on no government records, has no past and can’t even tell the police her own name.

Christened Jane Doe and suffering terrifying hallucinations, she is assigned to Nathan Fox, a forensic psychiatrist struggling with his own demons after witnessing his parents’ murder as a child. Together they must piece together the jigsaw that is Jane’s identity.

Then a sequence of brutal killings terrorise the city and Fox learns Jane is the only cryptic link between the unrelated victims. To solve the murders, discover who she is and diagnose her condition, Fox must discard his black and white preconceptions, look beyond the spectrum of normal human experience and confront the dark truth of her past…and his own.

My Review:
I received this book as I am participating in the Transworld Book Group Reading Challenge. This is the sort of book that I would normally read. This is a first a thriller yet has a supernatural twist that gives this book an edge on other books in a genre that of late has been rather stagnant.

The book starts off nineteen years earlier where a family get caught in a cross fire in a gas station and the little boy is the only survivor. We later find out that he is one of the main characters, Nathan Fox. The book then then moves on to the present day to a woman who single handed brings down a Russian Slave Trade and saves the slave girls. But afterwards looses her memory. Why did she save the girls? What is her name? And who is the baby in the picture in the locket she is wearing? She hopes to find out these answers by talking to Nathan Fox, who uses different methods to try and help her. You find out that she has a neurological condition called synathesia. Could this condition be the key in unlocking Jane Doe's past...?


The book really was a page turner. From ten pages in I was hooked and couldn't put it down. The characters were believeable and loveable, really three dimensional.


A book I really would recommend and an author I will most definately be looking in to invest in the rest of his works!