Scan barcode
A review by sonadora9
Five Minutes Alone by Paul Cleave
4.0
I received a free advanced readers copy of this book through the GoodReads FirstReads program.
"Five Minutes Alone" is about the struggle between a cop and a former cop as the latter makes it his mission to right the wrongs he sees that are the inevitable result of the justice system and give victims their "five minutes alone" with those who impacted their lives so negatively - rapists, murderers, etc. - and the former balances his duty as a cop to seek justice even for those criminals while recognizing the good that might be coming by their elimination.
I liked this book really well, and in fact the only hard negative I have for it is that it was the fourth in a series and was not advertised that way in the giveaways. I don't enter for books that are in a series I haven't read from yet because I like to read things in order, so when this one arrived and indicated it was a sequel (and the GoodReads entry for it later indicated the same), I put off reading it, thinking I likely would miss aspects of the plot.
Fortunately, Cleave does a good job of summarizing what has happened previously in these cops' lives so that the reader can follow the story even without having read those earlier books. Unfortunately, judging by the quality of this particular book, I would like to have read those books and now can't because spoilers.
Still, "Five Minutes Alone" is good even if you haven't read them, because the story does suck you in pretty quickly. The alternating perspectives lets the story be less about the mystery of who is committing these crimes and more about the tension between the right-or-wrong-ness of letting men go free after they have done particularly violent things, either because rehabilitation isn't as effective as you'd like to think or because the evidence was thrown out on technicalities, and of allowing past tragedies to dictate your future. I also felt like there were legitimately very few parts of the story that were predictable, which made for a compelling read as well.
Ultimately, I wanted to give this a 3.5 out of 5; rounded up to 4 for pulling off a great story even without the benefit of reading "Theodore Tates #1-3."
"Five Minutes Alone" is about the struggle between a cop and a former cop as the latter makes it his mission to right the wrongs he sees that are the inevitable result of the justice system and give victims their "five minutes alone" with those who impacted their lives so negatively - rapists, murderers, etc. - and the former balances his duty as a cop to seek justice even for those criminals while recognizing the good that might be coming by their elimination.
I liked this book really well, and in fact the only hard negative I have for it is that it was the fourth in a series and was not advertised that way in the giveaways. I don't enter for books that are in a series I haven't read from yet because I like to read things in order, so when this one arrived and indicated it was a sequel (and the GoodReads entry for it later indicated the same), I put off reading it, thinking I likely would miss aspects of the plot.
Fortunately, Cleave does a good job of summarizing what has happened previously in these cops' lives so that the reader can follow the story even without having read those earlier books. Unfortunately, judging by the quality of this particular book, I would like to have read those books and now can't because spoilers.
Still, "Five Minutes Alone" is good even if you haven't read them, because the story does suck you in pretty quickly. The alternating perspectives lets the story be less about the mystery of who is committing these crimes and more about the tension between the right-or-wrong-ness of letting men go free after they have done particularly violent things, either because rehabilitation isn't as effective as you'd like to think or because the evidence was thrown out on technicalities, and of allowing past tragedies to dictate your future. I also felt like there were legitimately very few parts of the story that were predictable, which made for a compelling read as well.
Ultimately, I wanted to give this a 3.5 out of 5; rounded up to 4 for pulling off a great story even without the benefit of reading "Theodore Tates #1-3."