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    Naught Reawakening

    Naught Reawakening

    Games

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    App

    Play with gravity to guide Naught through a mysterious underground world where darkness is a...

    ATOMINE

    ATOMINE

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    Video Game Watch

    Atomine is a twin stick procedural rogue-lite shooter set in a virtual world with minimalist design,...

The Surgeon (Rizzoli & Isles, #1)
The Surgeon (Rizzoli & Isles, #1)
Tess Gerritsen | 2001 | Crime, Thriller
8
7.9 (18 Ratings)
Book Rating
Chilling story (0 more)
Rizzoli is a nasty piece of work (0 more)
Gore heavy police procedural
This is the first book in the Rizzoli and Isles thriller series, apparently there is a TV series based off this but I’ve never seen it so went into this blind. Isles does not appear as a character in this book and even RIzzoli is more of a secondary character.

Catherine Cordell is a skilled surgeon working in Boston where she fled to following a horrific attack two years ago. Although she killed her attacker her exterior confidence hides the continued fear the trauma has instilled in her everyday life. When the impossible seems to occur and the killer returns to stalk her, Detective Moore is determined to protect along with fellow officer Rizzoli.

The villain and what he does is full on terrifying and creepy as hell (just the way I like them.) However if you are in any way squeamish and don’t like a lot of blood and gore you should probably avoid this book. There is a lot of graphic descriptions of injuries of people coming into an emergency room, surgery and torture. Rape is also a central theme and again descriptions can be disturbing so be warned.

This felt like a very solid police procedural book. The style will be familiar with Criminal Minds fans in that you get to see a bit behind the curtain. I didn’t feel there was a lot of puzzling mystery, but you were swept along in the investigation to find the unsub.

My main hope with this series is Rizzoli becomes a bit more human, in this book I just wanted to slap her for being such a cow to both victims and colleagues. Her constant internal moaning about how bad she is treated because she’s a woman made me laugh, it seemed more to be just because she isn’t a very nice person. She doesn't come across as a very good cop at all, poor at doing interviews, following procedure, working as a team. Meanwhile Moore was a much more sympathetic character.

Looking forward to seeing where the series goes from here.
  
Out For Blood (DI Eve Hunter #2)
Out For Blood (DI Eve Hunter #2)
Deborah Masson | 2020 | Crime, Thriller
7
7.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
After reading and enjoying the first in this series, Hold Your Tongue, I was looking forward to getting my teeth into this one and I wasn't disappointed. I will say that although you don't necessarily have to have read the first, I do think you will enjoy this second one more if you do.

This is a gritty police procedural set in Aberdeen, Scotland which delves into the seedy and repulsive world of human trafficking but what does the death of a privileged young man and the apparent suicide of a young woman have in common? On first impressions, absolutely nothing however, DI Hunter and her team set about investigating and what they find is worse than they expected.

Mainly written from Eve's perspective interspersed with other characters and those of an unknown young woman, this gave insight from all the important protagonists in this book and provided a well-rounded view of the situation from all angles. The characters are well developed and believable with the relationships between Eve and her wider team excellently portrayed.

The story is a difficult one to read in parts but, I felt, was dealt with respectfully but with no holds-barred which made it feel authentic making me feel both sad and angry in equal measure that these things are likely to be happening to someone right now! The pace is good, it does start off a little slow but increases as the story develops and this follows the pace of the investigation, again making it feel believable and, once again, the author manages to keep the identity of the killer well hidden which kept me guessing and second guessing throughout.

Overall, I have no hesitation in recommending this to others who enjoy a cleverly written and gripping police procedural and I look forward to reading the next instalment in what is a great series with DI Hunter fast becoming a favourite character of mine.

I was fortunate enough to have been invited to read an advance copy by Transworld Publishers, part of Penguin Random House UK, via NetGalley in return for an unbiased and unedited review and for which, I am thankful.
  
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Awix (3310 KP) rated Entry Island in Books

Mar 27, 2019  
Entry Island
Entry Island
Peter May | 2019 | Fiction & Poetry
6
6.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Not my usual sort of thing, but recommended to (more like thrust upon) me by someone whose taste in books is usually interesting. Not necessarily in this case, though: a competent mash-up of a contemporary police procedural thriller with a windblown historical romance set during the Highland clearances (younger readers, ask your dad): a Canadian cop starts having flashbacks (kind of) to his ancestor's life while investigating a murder on a remote island; he feels certain he knows the prime suspect, although she and he have never met before...

The structure of the book certainly works in its favour: whenever you get bored of the whodunnit, the switch to goings-on in the 19th century Hebrides is welcome, and vice versa. And, fair's fair, the story does pick up pace and interest in the final third after a slightly stodgy opening. However, neither the plotting nor the writing are what I'd call inspired; workmanlike is the word that springs to mind. Passes the time inoffensively but unlikely to linger in the memory.