Ransom's Redemption
9.0
Rate It
Book
At first it seemed harmless enough, then came the photographs…intimate details of her life laid...
Lesbian PTSD
The Boy at the Door
2.0
Rate It
Book
Set against a stunning Scandinavian backdrop, a gritty novel of psychological suspense that asks the...
mystery thriller fiction adult Alex Dahl The Boy at the Door
The Magpies
8.5
Rate It
Book
Fear lives next door... When Jamie and Kirsty move into their first home together they are full...
Murder Worth the Weight
8.0
Rate It
Book
Whenever Terry Mangel's body acceptance revival meeting rolls into town, local diet execs and "fat...
Psychological Thriller Romantic Suspense Women's Fiction
Hazel (2934 KP) rated The Twenty (Major Crimes, Book 2) in Books
May 7, 2023
I read a lot of crime and psychological thrillers and the odd horror book and it takes a lot to get me going but Sam Holland most definitely got me going with The Twenty. Oh my word!! Why? I hear you ask.
Excellent and interesting characters ... check.
Excellent serial killer ... check.
Gripping story line ... check.
Fast pace ... check.
Twists and turns ... check.
Gruesome scenes that give you the chills ... check.
Tension and suspense in spades ... check.
What more is there to be said? Oh yes, this might be book 2 but don't let that put you off, it can easily be read as a standalone but I would strongly suggest you read book 1, The Echo Man, it's also a cracker!!
Highly recommended to those of you who enjoy a dark, gritty and grisly crime thriller ... you won't go far wrong with Sam Holland and I must thank HarperCollins UK, HarperFiction and NetGalley for enabling me to read and share my thoughts of the brilliant The Twenty.
I can't wait to see what comes next.
The Imposter
8.5
Rate It
Book
They say you can't choose your family . . . But what if they're wrong? Chloe lives a quiet life....
Psychological thriller
True Story
8.0
Rate It
Book
After a college party, two boys drive a girl home: drunk and passed out in the back seat. Rumours...
365Flicks (235 KP) rated Deadly Intent (2016) in Movies
Nov 20, 2019
I am on a pretty big Indie kick right now. Trying to rekindle my love of the the Movie Gems you can find out there if you just look past the top 10 of the moment. In doing this we have created a Spin-Off of our podcast in which we will endeavor to promote Indie Cinema and Indie releases on such forms as VOD because not everything has to be capes and spandex or break a billion at the box office.
Director Rebekah Fortune’s unnerving British horror-thriller Deadly Intent is now available On Demand in the U.S.
Deadly Intent is a movie I would stick in the above category. A low budget Few thrills Intense Psychological Horror/Thriller that ticks all the boxes it promises to. Think Babadook, a tense movie that runs at its own pace and is driven by the performances of its leading Female (Rebecca Reaney) as a mother who’s thread is slowly being unwoven and James (Gus Barry) a child who is struggling to deal with the loss of his father… But wait something is afoot.
download-40
I will only dive into this movie a little because to be honest it is only a roughly 90 minute flick that takes half the time your normal thriller would take to actually get into things and keeps the momentum going till the credits. Rebecca Reaney plays Bryony, a mother who is really trying to keep it together for her son James after the death of his father. As with every child in a movie of this genre, James begins to have some paranormal interaction with his father. Not in a Field of Dreams “Do you wanna play catch” type of way, more of a “If im heading to the light your coming with me”. As things really begin to turn to shit for our mother and son we are also given a backstory of the lead up to the fathers supposed death in the form of flashbacks, we find him to be a former soldier suffering from PTSD and… Well not a very nice man.
This movie held my attention in a way I was not really expecting, you hear British, Horror, Thriller and it doesn’t immediately fill you with hope. However we have been able to make some corkers at times and like I say i’m on an Indie kick so this fell into my wheelhouse. The movie is very well executed by not only its reasonably small cast of characters but also script wise and directorial wise. It really doesn’t out stay its welcome, and you can really draw comparisons with movies like Babadook which is a cult darling so thats never a bad thing.
I recommend you give this flick a watch if only for the performances given by Rebecca Reaney and the rest of the cast. As for the movies director Rebekah Fortune, I fully expect to be seeing more from this woman in the future.
Haley Mathiot (9 KP) rated Primary Victim in Books
Apr 27, 2018
Genre: Crime Fiction, Crime thriller
Rating: 4.5/5
Summary (from back of book): A serial killer whose victims don’t die. An innocent man who believes he is guilty. A police officer who may solve the crime but in doing so gives the killer exactly what he wants. A legal defense that challenges the very core ideals of justice.
Primary Victim is a thriller that tests both the psychological breaking point of an individual and the strength of the legal system governing society.
Review:
I’ll admit up front that I have a weakness for crime fiction—but this book was amazing. Words escape my mind as I try to explain how blown away I am by this book. I gasped and grinned and nearly cried and laughed at the surprises thrown at me through this stunning debut novel.
The psychological aspect of PRIMARY VICTIM was mainly found in the “Victim,” Brice. I won’t say what happens to him, but it amazed me as his mind began to twist and change through the course of the story.
The plot: PRIMARY VICTIM was full of twists and turns that I never expected, and it had me sitting on the edge of my seat the entire time. I couldn’t put it down! The viewpoint alternates between the criminal, the police officer, and the (living) victim, and switches back and forth at the most inconvenient places, forcing you to read on.
Characters: All the characters in PRIMARY VICTIM were strongly developed with real personalities. I hate books where people are just to perfect to be real (what I call “happyland syndrome”)—this book had the good guys and the bad guys, the the ones you hoped it all worked out for them, and the ones that you wished would be the next to die because they were such jerks (cough Nick cough).
By the end of the book I wasn’t sure what Michael (the criminal) was going to pull out of his hat, and was, from the very first page to the very last, impressed with Michael’s genius and creativity. At times I actually found myself almost cheering for him, but had to remind myself that he was the bad guy. It was almost hard to see him as the bad guy at times, because of his “work—” Michael considered himself a God in a world that needed one and didn’t have one, victimizing the people that he thought needed to be victimized.
Brice and Sarah were such a perfect yet sad couple, and for the sake of keeping the review spoiler-free, I won’t say anything… but I thought I was going to cry at one point.
Writing: The writing was the weakest point of this book. The prose itself seemed written in an unfamiliar style, minimizing comas in the sentences, and it made for a harder read. I caught myself occasionally re-reading sentences and paragraphs to understand what had happened. Aside from the prose, the vocabulary was broad enough and the pacing was good.
As of now, PRIMARY VICTIM is unedited, but there is only an occasional grammatical error, formatting error, or typo scattered through the book. However, all in all, it didn’t take away from the story.
Content: There was brief mention of sex between husband and wife (example: “they made love,” no other details, and the fact that they’re married made it that much better), and an occasional foul word from an angry officer, but other than that this book was refreshingly clean. I applaud Christopher for writing a crime thriller with low content—especially compared to some of the other crime thrillers out there. Maybe he can start a revolution. It’s true, people—you can have a good book without excessive sex and language!
Recommendation: Ages 14+ to lovers of Crime fiction, thrillers, and psychological thrillers.