Reviewed by PizzyGirl

TITLE: Hacked Up

AUTHOR: Ethan Stone

PUBLISHER: Stone Publishing

LENGTH: 264 Pages

RELEASE DATE:  February 6, 2017

BLURB:

Seattle is being plagued by a string of gruesome murders. For Detective Peter Tao, it’s a career-making case, but he’s struggling to find a lead. How is the killer choosing his victims? What is he trying to prove?

With a long list of suspects and nothing to connect them, Peter is more determined than ever to apprehend the murderer. Then Peter gets the one vital piece of evidence that ties everything together. Now he’ll have to look beyond the obvious to identify the killer before anyone else is murdered.

Solve the mystery in this fast-moving crime thriller by Ethan Stone.

REVIEW:

I struggled with this review. I had to sit on it for a few days because I wanted to be sure I was reviewing the book and not the fact that I disliked the subject matter so intensely.

***SPOILER ALERT***

Be warned, the blurb gives nothing away, but this entire book is about cheating. It is based on the Ashley Madison hacking fiasco and as such may be a hard topic for some to read. I know had I been aware of the subject matter, I would have never picked this one up.

***END ALERT***

That being said, in the end, it wasn’t the subject matter that bothered me the most but the fact that this book was simply missing that spark I needed to feel a connection and understand the basis for many of the words on the page.

As far as technical execution is concerned, this book had it all. The trope was well established and the script followed along perfectly. The mystery was well displayed, the cop scenes were interesting, the dating and the character interactions set the stage for a relationship nicely.

But I never FELT what the author’s words told me the characters were feeling. I never understood the emotional connections in the romance. I kept rereading sections because I thought maybe I had missed something that would make me sympathetic to the crying spouses or to believe the sincerity in the apologies. But it never manifested. I never got that true emotional depth needed to make me connect with the characters or the outcome of the plot.

I rated this one 3 stars because I liked the mystery and I can see how some folks would enjoy this one. But for me, I spent too much time feeling like I an outsider looking in to really say I enjoyed the overall novel. My apologies to the author, but I cannot give this one more than an average rating.
RATING: 

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