Thursday, November 15, 2012

{Review} "Like a Suicide" by John J. Archer

Title:  Like A Suicide
Author: John J. Archer
Publisher:  Nazarite Limited Publishing
Publication Date: September 29, 2012
Genre: Psychological Thriller 
Format:  Paperback -- pages  |  Kindle 410 KB

Buy this book on Amazon:   Kindle Edition

Synopsis from Goodreads: 

"Like A Suicide" is a psychological thriller/suspense about 'Wraith' who is a serial killer. He believes proper order can only be brought about in the world via chaos. Most of his kills make sense in that way. It just happens that this time someone has the nerve to bring chaos into his world by stealing money from him. 

After tracking down the perpetrator James and confronting him Wraith concludes that he is either a genius or an idiot after the man denies knowing anything about the stolen money in a convincing manner. 

Wraith concludes James must die but decides to take his time and find out if this is the guy that might provide the challenging kill he has been looking for all along. He has to do all this with Detective Sweeney, the local superstar detective hot on his trail.

As he gets ready to go for the kill Wraith can sense that something is wrong. It's just that this time this kill seems 'Like A Suicide', which makes it much more difficult than previous kills.
Diving in...
This was a pretty quick read for me.  I actually read it in just a couple hours. This book was a weird one!  I am not sure how to even properly describe it.  I am going to actually keep my comments petty brief.  It's one of those that is easily spoiled and I don't want to do that.

I can't say that this is a murder mystery because it's pretty clear from the first page who the killer is.  What isn't clear is what the connection is between James and Wraith.  I actually had the basics of the plot figured out pretty early on, but the writer does throw in a couple twists that I hadn't anticipated. 

I did feel like the writing was a bit stiff and sometimes too formal.  I found myself reading contractions where there were none just because it seemed more natural.  There were very few contractions and that's why it comes across as too formal, I think.  I think that this book could  have used another good edit.

The overall idea is a really good one and the execution was almost there it just needed a little more work.  It became too predictable at times and sometimes things happened a little too conveniently for my taste. 

The murder scenes are particularly gruesome, but well written.  It's the plotting and technical stuff that bothered me more than the content.  It's definitely a psychological thriller and while sometimes it's predictable there were a few curve-balls there at the end that made me think "what the heck...".

*Disclaimer:  I was provided with a copy of this book courtesy of the author in exchange for an honest review.*

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