Reviews tagging 'Violence'

The Murder Box by Olivia Kiernan

1 review

honeyreads1066's review against another edition

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challenging dark tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I haven't read a good classic murder mystery in so long.

This book follows Frankie, a detective who is trying to solve the case of a missing tv star. After hitting a wall she receives a mysterious box with clues about the murder of a young girl Lydia Callin. This box leads her to a forum where other places have received a similar version of this box and are in it to win it. However, a girl comes into the station asking Frankie to look into the case of her missing roommate and all of a sudden the murder box seems to hold the answers to everything.

First, off this idea, I have never seen it before. I'm an avid reader of thrillers but the idea of making this an actual game of sorts added another element that I very much enjoyed and found very interesting. 

Having not read the previous books (this is the 4th book in the Frankie Sheehan series) before I am not so attached to the characters as I probably would have been, but this book was fine as a stand-alone. While I didn't care for the characters as much as I thought I should I was engrossed enough in the mystery that it didn't seem like a big issue.

The ending itself made a lot of sense. I spend a lot of these type of books trying to figure out just who the killer is but here I was not able to but when you finally did learn who it was, I was pleasantly surprised. While I wasn't expecting it, It did make sense and didn't come out of nowhere which I find is great with a good twist. Despite this I do feel like the climax fell a little flat, maybe if I was more attached to the characters I would have felt differently.

Overall, I enjoyed myself a lot, I love how fast-paced this is and the originality of the idea. While I don't feel particularly strongly about this, I had fun.

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