Michael Best

A strange but enjoyable tale of a “grumpy” old man descending into ever worse behaviour as he seeks to live a new life.

Shallow, stereotypical characters and a story which starts as though it wants to be an interesting examination of a riot but soon realises it has nothing to say, so it morphs in to a second rate political drama.

Both clever and preposterous. Enjoyable nonetheless.

A horrifying revelation of the role of crime in modern southern Italy. However, I really struggled with the writing style (albeit, in translation) and the scattergun way of telling the tale.

Things are not good when reviewing the metadata on one's music collection too often proved more attractive than picking up this book for its next chapter.

A decent police thriller with a seriously flawed main character. It managed to draw me in enough that I fancy a second book.

Did not finish. I gave up after 70%.

If it is a love story, I found the characters neither believable nor understandable.

If, as I suspect, it is some kind of Albanian political allegory, I am too stupid to understand it.

I really struggle with Satanic/black magic storylines and I think that is why it took me so long to get through this book.

The “noir”, hardboiled detective style was great. It was just that tricky subject matter that makes me mark this as a 3 for me.

A lot easier to read than I had feared it would be.

A 3.5, but I am feeling generous.

Parts of this were incredibly difficult to read, but I see that as a credit.

Perhaps, he tries a bit too hard to explain Heuser's actions/motivations.

Perhaps 3.5. Short, insular and sad.

Curious but disappointing.

This seems, to me, to be a somewhat cliched, rather slight story created in order to make one devastating legal point at the end.

Enjoyable enough but, for me, one of the weaker books in the series.

I enjoyed the historical context but was less enamoured with the writing style.

This is a short and relatively simple story, albeit seeking to deal with the unpleasant subject of domestic violence.

I loved much of this and will hunt out more of his writings, but in truth I did feel that I needed to have had some Austro-Hungarian experience to fully understand and relate to the book.

Well, that was a bit like being repeatedly hit over the head with a hammer - fortunately, a small one!

Ok, this one grabbed me from the first line and would not let go.

It genuinely made me laugh and cry.

Wonderful!

Neither a short story nor a proper novel. It felt very slight - a bit of light exercise for Ms Atwood.

Sorry, but a slog for me. The structure did not flow. Way too much exposition. No new ideas. I have no interest in reading any others in the series.

I really want to give this book just one star, but I realise I made the mistake of thinking this might be some deeper, more skilfully written work. In fact, it is just another rather shallow, YAF book and probably does not warrant receiving my full ire.

Probably 3.5. Nicely paced. I enjoyed it enough to tempt me to acquire the second in the series.

A complete mess of a book. The histrionics and generally overblown, exaggerated writing became too much to bear.

Feeling generous, I have given this 3 stars.

In truth, I enjoyed the start but increasingly lost interest in the heart of the book, namely the psychological profiling of the killer.

Perhaps, if I was a New Yorker I would have got more from the history elements of the book.

I doubt I will bother buying the next in the series.

Disappointing overwrought melodrama.