Killing Spree by Kevin O'Brien

2009-03-19 at 10:19 a.m.


I finished the second book by Kevin O'Brien, "Killing Spree." I have to say that my original suspicions of the book being the same story as the first foray into his fictional realm only under different names (actually the same last name in one case)was, fortunately for me, a wrong assumption. (If you've read more than one Dan Brown novel, you know what I'm talking about.)
I think this book was better than the last. If his storytelling keeps getting more interesting with each new novel, I will definately have to hitch a ride. I think the depth of character he gave this time around really was what did it for me. Unlike in his last book I read, "Make Them Cry," his developement of the characters, especially the son's in this case, was much more unique and defined than the stereotypical, almost cliqued characters in the last. In the previous read, the characters tended to revolve around a certain aspect of their lives. In this read, he was taking traits and integrating them INTO their lives. (Does that make sense?) I quess what I'm trying to say is that in the last book it felt more like he was writing about characteristics and less about people, so that the reader tended to focus on those and not on the whole of the story. One couldn't get deep enough into the plot because they were constantly being pulled outside of the story to look at an adornment.
I have to say that my favorite part of both his books is his attempt to keep the villians identity a secret right up untill the end. I absolutely LOVE not being able to figure out who the bad guys is! In "Make Them Cry," I did figure out who it was about two thirds of the way through the book, but this time around, I didn't have a clue. I didn't figure it out until he decided to diclose the information. Good job, Kevin. I'm not trying to say I'm really good at spotting nuggets of seemingly innoccuious trivia put in to foreshadow future events, cause I'm not. But a lot of writers tend to make these supposed-to-be-subtle clues way too obvious with not enough red herrings thrown in to muddy up the waters.
Kevin writes very complex stories with more than a few important plots going on at one time. It's great for mixing up the bad guys and the good guys, although in "Make Them Cry" it distracted too much from the storytelling. All in all, "Killing Spree" was a great read and I think I will be getting more of his books.

drinking: Iced tea
listening to: Queen's Play The Game
thinking: On to the next book in the queue










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Something New - 2009-06-04

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