The Survivor by Sean Slater

The Blurb On The Back:

The truth lies behind the mask.

In his first hour back from a six-month leave of absence, Detective Jacob Striker’s day quickly turns into a nightmare. He is barely on scene five minutes at his daughter’s high school when he encounters an Active Shooter situation. Three men wearing hockey masks – Black, White and Red – have stormed the school with firearms and are killing indiscriminately. Striker takes immediate action.

Within minutes, two of the gunmen are dead and Striker is close to ending the violence. But before Striker can react, Red Mask flees – and escapes. Against the clock, Striker investigates the killings for which there is no known motive and no suspect. Soon his investigation takes him to darker places, and he realizes that everything at Saint Patrick’s High is not as it appears. The closer he gets to the truth, the more dangerous his world becomes.

Until Striker himself is in the line of fire.

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

Sean Slater’s debut police thriller is a disappointing story with an 80s vibe that features a rule-breaking cop who has to push against his pencil-pushing superior in order to do what he does best. I picked it up because I hadn’t read any detective thrillers set in Canada and because Slater himself is a serving police officer, which I thought would add some realism to the story. I was wrong. Striker comes from the Lethal Weapon school of policing – running around a lot, shouting and making out with his obligatory hot partner/ex-girlfriend. The death of his wife and emotional estrangement from his daughter is written like a soap opera (the daughter in particular coming across as a stereotype petulant teenager) and the love scenes with Santos (who isn’t really given much agency and is stuck as Striker’s emotional support) made me cringe. What really made me uncomfortable though was the slow reveal of Red Mask’s motivation and back story, which takes in Cambodia’s Year Zero in a way that seems intended to be sympathetic but which, for me, strays pretty close to racism. The antagonist’s plot actually doesn’t make a huge amount of sense and the pay off lacks lustre. I also found myself rolling my eyes at the two-dimensional caricature of Striker’s pencil pushing boss Laroche, a media-hungry hound who prefers to make press statements than do the job and who has a personal vendetta against Striker. Ultimately, as a fan of the genre, there wasn’t anything new or nuanced enough for me, which is why I won’t be reading on. However, if you’re looking for a new square-jawed hero to blow away punks and keep the streets safe, this might be worth a look.

Thanks to Simon & Schuster for the review copy of this book.

Halting State by Charles Stross

The Blurb On The Back:

No cheats, no back doors, no extra lives.

It was called in as a robbery at Hayek Associates, an online game company. So you can imagine Sergeant Sue Smith’s mood as she watches footage of the heist being carried out by a band of orcs and a dragon, and realises that the robbery from an online game company is actually a robbery from an online game.

Just wonderful. Like she has nothing better to do. But when the bodies of actual people start to show up, it’s clear that there is something very dangerous and very real going on at Hayek Associates.

If this is a game, someone is playing for keeps.

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

Charlie Stross’s cyber thriller (first published in 2008) has great ideas and makes interesting use of the second person point of view. However, the story becomes overly convoluted at times with the introduction of new players while the plot frequently becomes bogged down with technical info dumps that I had trouble following (although to be fair, Stross says in an interview at the end that he’s writing for an audience that has a certain level of technical expertise). Of the three main narrators I particularly liked the pragmatic Sue who’s aware of the politics going on above her pay grade but is more concerned with keeping her head down and just doing the job and worrying about her son. In comparison I found Elaine and Jack to be less well developed and their development is, unfortunately, more predictable (notwithstanding a couple of plot twists that I thought were well handled). There’s a lot of politics in the novel and it’s interesting to see the predictions that Stross makes for the (then) future – some of which are on the verge of coming true (such as driverless cars), some of which could still conceivably happen (e.g. quantum computers) and others are more open to question. Where the book did fall down for me though was in the technical info dumps, particularly when it comes to explaining how on-line computing and other systems work, which mostly went over my head and therefore slowed down the action. That said though, there while this book wasn’t really for me, I would definitely read more of Stross’s work.

Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch

The Blurb On The Back:

Thief and con-man extraordinaire, Locke Lamora, and the ever lethal Jean Tannen have fled their home city and the wreckage of their lives. But they can’t run forever and when they stop they decide to head for the richest, and most difficult, target on the horizon. The city state of Tal Verarr. And the Sinspire.

The Sinspire is the ultimate gambling house. No-one has stolen so much as a single coin from it and lived. It’s the sort of challenge Locke simply can’t resist …

… but Lock’s perfect crime is going to have to wait.

Someone else in Tal Verarr wants the Gentleman Bastards’ expertise and is quite prepared to kill them to get it. Before long, Locke and Jean find themselves engaged in piracy. Fine work for thieves who don’t know one end of galley from another.

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

The second in Scott Lynch’s GENTLEMAN BASTARDS SERIES is a clever novel that sadly lacks the fizz and vim that made THE LIES OF LOCKE LAMORA such an entertaining read. My biggest issue with the novel was the use of time jumps in the first third of the book as Lynch bounces from the present to the past, both to set up exactly what happened to Lock and Jean’s relationship following the events in Camorr and to set up the con that they’re now pulling. For me, there were simply too many of them, which made it difficult for me to get any sense of momentum and it’s compounded once the Archon storyline gets started as Lynch spends a lot of time teaching Locke and Jean how to sail, which I didn’t find particularly interesting. I was also disappointed that the opening chapter (which sees Jean turn on Locke) has such a lame pay off and ultimately, there just wasn’t enough excitement within the story to keep me hooked. On the positive side, the descriptions are great – vivid and evocative – and the relationship between Jean and Locke remains fascinating and believable (especially the way they get so frustrated with each other) and it was interesting to see how that relationship is affected when Jean gets a love interest. For all the faults though, the cliff hanger ending will see me checking out the next book just to see what happens to the rogues next.

13 Minutes by Sarah Pinborough

The Blurb On The Back:

18:24
She really doesn’t remember
U think she will? Im scared
Me 2. I’ll call you l8r.

18:25
I wish she’d died.
DELETE! We’ll be ok.

I was dead for 13 minutes.

I don’t remember how I ended up in the icy water but I do know this – it wasn’t an accident and I wasn’t suicidal.

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

Sarah Pinborough’s YA psychological thriller is a well-paced affair that picks apart the tensions that can exist in the relationships between teenage girls and the pressure caused by the need to be popular. At the core of the story is the relationship between Becca and Natasha and, in particular, Becca’s need to try and win Natasha back as a friend. I thought that Pinborough did particularly well at showing Becca’s neediness and anxiety (both with Natasha and her boyfriend, Aiden) without the reader losing sympathy. Pinborough also utilises a variety of inventive narrative techniques, such as text message exchanges, journal entries and interviews with the police and a psychologist, all of which keep things fresh and interesting. Where the novel fell down for me though was in the sections recounted by Jamie, a musician who discovers Natasha and who employs Aiden to help him in his work as he doesn’t have much perspective on the core relationships and so adds little. I also found the characterisation of the other two Barbies – Hayley and Jenny – to be a little two-dimensional, particularly Jenny who’s limited to being a council estate kid with a reputation for putting out and I would have liked for Aiden to get more page time as the twists that come in his relationship with Becca are a little too sudden. The main problem for me though is that she tips her hand as to the identity of the villain a little too early, which robs the final quarter of the book of some tension. That said, I kept turning the pages and look forward to reading what Pinborough does next.

13 MINUTES will be released in the United Kingdom on 18th February 2016. Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the ARC of this book.