I received this novel as an advance copy from Netgalley and the publishers in exchange for my honest review.
This book had a synopsis that guaranteed I had to read it. Sometimes I think there’s something wrong with me for liking really creepy and messed-up books … but then again, I love reading these books too much to care! Anyways, here is my review:
Summary (Goodreads): Martin Reese has a hobby: he digs up murder victims. He buys stolen police files on serial killers, and uses them to find and dig up missing bodies. Calls in the results anonymously, taunting the police for their failure to do their job.
Detective Sandra Whittal takes that a little personally. She’s suspicious of the mysterious caller, who she names the Finder. Maybe he’s the one leaving the bodies behind. If not, who’s to say he won’t start soon?
As Whittal begins to zero in on the Finder, Martin makes a shocking discovery. It seems someone—someone lethal—is very unhappy about the bodies he’s been digging up.
Hunted by a cop, hunted by a killer. To escape and keep his family safe, Martin may have to go deeper into the world of murder than he ever imagined.
Review: I really really wanted to love this book, and I had high expectations for it because the premise just sounded so amazing. However, it just didn’t work for me.
I think one of my big problems with this book is that it has a very slow pace. It took a long time for the story to get going and even when it did, it wasn’t necessarily presented in the most interesting way. I wanted things to be fast-paced to keep in line with the intensity of the premise. But this was definitely a slow burner of a story, and I don’t know if it really worked well for this type of novel.
I also didn’t really like any of the characters and found the style of conversation between different characters to be very stilted and awkward. It really wasn’t realistic at all, which is one of my pet peeves. I wish the interactions had been developed better as that really hindered my ability to enjoy reading this book. I also felt that the characters lacked the depth I was looking for. Martin is just very, very dull for the longest time and I found him annoying. I didn’t like the two police detectives as they were very cookie-cutter and one-dimensional; I wanted something more unique from them.
Overall, this novel had an interesting premise but it didn’t meet my expectations. I wanted deeper characters and a faster pace, so for these reasons, I’m giving it a 2/5 stars.
Happy reading ~
The synopsis sounds so food. But I like fast-paced stories and well developed characters. Thanks for your honest review!
Yeah it takes a while to get to that fast pace and I prefer the action to start from the get-go. Thanks for commenting, glad you liked the review!
Have you found that a lot of ebooks from NetGalley are disappointing, like they have a really good synopsis but then the story just sucks? I haven’t reviewed very much from NetGalley, but the few things I have reviewed just weren’t good. If you do find better stories through NetGalley, how do you weed through the bad stuff to find the good stuff?
I know what you mean. Of fifteen NetGalley books I’ve recently read, only one was good enough to be rated 5 stars. The rest are just like, what…?
So I’ve been on Netgalley for a while now and I’ve reviewed about 200 books. Even then, it’s a hit or miss at times. But when I go to the Find Titles tab, I go to the Most Requested section and that’s where I can find more books that interest me and are 5 star rating books. It can still be a hit or a miss but there are less chances of that.
So in the beginning, when I first joined netgalley, I definitely found that to be true. However, as my rating went up, I found myself getting approvals for some of the more popular stories. It is a hit or miss at times but it gets better as you keep trying. One thing I use to help me with this is that when I go to find titles, I click on the Most Requested section on the left hand side. That usually shows you some of the more popular and better books out there!
Good to know! I didn’t know that was how NetGalley worked. Thanks!
It took me a while, trust me, I’ve been on Netgalley for a while now. It just takes a lot of scrolling and searching and giving things a shot. Also, update your profile and preferences. You can also add certain publishers as your favourites, which always helps!
WHUTTT but that synopsis is great!!!!! How sad!
I know, it was what drew me to the book in the first place! A lot of people did find that by the time they got to the end, it was worth it but it was just too much effort for me.
At least you didn’t spend any money on it just to be disappointed in the end!
That is true, because it would have hurt me a lot if it had gone to waste 🙁
Although I enjoyed this one, I completely agree with you that the characterization was lacking. And the dialogue wasn’t the greatest, but I found the premise unique, which is hard to find these days in this genre!
Yes, the premise was fantastic. That was probably the reason I continued with it, despite the characterization and dialogue. However, when it came to the final scoring, I found my enjoyment of the book tempered by the awkward writing style. I’m glad you liked it, though!