Hunting Evil by Chris Carter – Book Review

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Hunting Evil by Chris Carter – Book Cover

Chris Carter has an uncanny ability to tap into the zeitgeist: his crime novels, which verge on slasher horror, manage to satisfy fans of multiple genres at once. His infinitely detailed descriptions of gruesome crimes fill readers with both a shudder and a morbid curiosity. And just when you think Carter is merely rewriting the same book over and over again, the American author delivers An Evil Mind, a true monument to human depravity. Hunting Evil is the sequel to this work.

Experiments of a serial killer

In the preface to Hunting Evil, Chris Carter himself suggests starting with the preceding novel, a recommendation that’s hard to disagree with. Without the context of the sixth installment (see An Evil Mind) of the Robert Hunter series, this book is far less impactful.

Without this background, as you progress through the pages of Hunting Evil, you might mistakenly believe that Lucien Folter is just another annoying, attention-seeking, and thus particularly irritating, subtype of serial killer—a mere clown, so to speak.

You couldn’t be more wrong. An Evil Mind makes it clear that this elusive human chameleon, who aspires to create an encyclopedia of serial killers, is the devil himself!

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Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery – Book Review

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Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery – Book Cover

When the elderly siblings Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert, living in the Prince Edward Island village of Avonlea, request an orphan boy from the orphanage to help with the chores around their home, they are quite surprised to find they’ve received a girl instead. But who on earth needs a girl? Certainly not Marilla, the practical, down-to-earth spinster. So what will happen to Anne Shirley, the freckled, skinny, red-haired, plain-looking eleven-year-old girl? How will she ever become Anne of Green Gables?

Anne Shirley is unwanted by anyone

The girl’s only hope is Matthew, the slow-witted, odd, and shy old man who has a pathological fear of women. He doesn’t even look at them, let alone speak to them. (This is somewhat understandable, of course.) So, Anne Shirley’s chances, to put it mildly, are not very promising…

However, the reclusive Matthew, who sticks out like a sore thumb among his peers, is the first to realize—even before the reader—that the lonely and unwanted Anne needs them far more than they need her. (Understanding that the reverse is also true comes later.)

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Holly by Stephen King – Book Review

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Holly by Stephen King – Book Cover

Stephen King read a newspaper article about an elderly couple who had committed murder. Everyone considered them to be kind and decent people—until the buried bodies were found in their backyard. “Perfect material for a novel,” thought King. Meanwhile, the COVID-19 pandemic was raging worldwide. All that was needed was Holly Gibney, the beloved character from the Mr. Mercedes books who had since become a private detective, and the result is the thrilling and chilling crime novel titled Holly.

Ultra-conservatives, beware!

Why?

Because you’ll get angry right at the beginning of this book.

One of the main threads in Stephen King’s Holly is the coronavirus. Interestingly, and almost inexplicably, anti-vaxxers primarily come from the staunchly right-wing voting demographic worldwide. I’m not entirely sure, but many believe these people are also the ones more susceptible to conspiracy theories.

(For example: The Earth is flat and is carried on the backs of four bristly armadillos.; or the Moon is made entirely of Emmental cheese. Watch out! These theories might seem entirely plausible at first glance, but they are not true!)

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The Daylight War by Peter V. Brett – Book Review

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Daylight War by Peter V. Brett – Book Cover

Demons Never Give You a Moment of Peace

It’s as if Peter V. Brett keeps getting better as a writer with each successive book in the Demon Cycle series. You definitely get that feeling with The Daylight War. And it’s not just because the stakes dramatically increase in this installment, which is true, but rather because Brett uses his characters much more effectively.

At first, the demons that seep to the surface from the depths of the earth during the night seem quite elusive and faceless. However, as the series progresses, you get to know these hellish creatures better and better.

What starts as a seemingly conventional world in The Warded Man, becomes increasingly complex here. And the demons lurking below ground realize that their dinner is becoming tougher and tougher.

In the Demon Cycle, everything and everyone comes in pairs: day and night, humans and demons, the northern duchies of Thesa and Krasia located in the south, the Creator and Everam, Ahmann Jardir and Arlen Bales. This duality is even more pronounced in Krasia, where men and women are separated just as distinctly as the full-fledged Sharum and the lower, despised Khaffit caste.

However, The Daylight War is about unification. Humanity must unite under the banner of the Deliverer if they are to defeat their common enemy. The problem is that there are two Deliverers. And each one is convinced that he is the true one. And with good reason…

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City on Fire by Don Winslow – Book Review

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City on Fire by Don Winslow – Book Cover

The Godfather – in Miniature

Don Winslow’s mafia novel, City on Fire, is essentially a watered-down version of The Godfather. Most of the motifs present in that classic novel appear here as well, such as:

• Mafia family wars over territory
• The unifying strength of family and blood ties
• The issue of succession, where the heir is, of course, not the most suitable candidate
• The drug trade as the path to big money, with the promise of big downfall

Since The Godfather is such a magnificent and unparalleled novel, you might be inclined to settle for even a reduced version, especially when it comes from the pen of Don Winslow, the author of the monumental The Power of the Dog trilogy. This time, with Irish and Italian mobsters clashing.

Small-Town Gangsters

Okay, but still. The fact that City on Fire is set in Providence, Rhode Island, also known as Dogtown, somehow diminishes initial expectations. Providence, squeezed between New York and Boston, is small and insignificant in comparison. Prostitution, gambling, and the docks are the main sources of money around there.

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The Last Move by Mary Burton – Book Review

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The Last Move by Mary Burton – Book Cover

Mary Burton is the author of dozens of romance novels. This fact alone might scare off many crime readers from picking up The Last Move. However, if you enjoy living dangerously, go ahead and give it a try.

The Last Move: A Decent Serial Killer Thriller

If you’ve already read a thousand crime novels where some vicious madmen is murdering innocent American citizens, it might be hard to surprise you. Mary Burton doesn’t really manage to do so either. But that’s not necessarily a problem, as it doesn’t seem to be her goal.

There’s a minor hiccup, though: theoretically, the Samaritan is already behind bars, but we’ve seen enough copycats, mentees trained by serial killers, or wrongly convicted criminals. It’s up to Dr. Hayden and Mazur to figure out which category the Samaritan falls into.

Minimal Romance Factor

Naturally, the protagonists have to work together. And here Burton surprises us: neither of them is unbearable, they don’t hate each other, and they don’t immediately want to rip each other’s clothes off. Instead, they work together excellently. Both are smart and dedicated, so it’s no wonder they develop a mutual attraction, right?

No.

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Geiger by Gustaf Skördeman – Book Review

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Geiger by Gustaf Skördeman – Book Cover

Have you been waiting for, and so far in vain, a crime novel similar to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, which once sparked the renaissance of Scandinavian crime fiction? If so, Gustaf Skördeman’s Geiger, the introductory novel in his series, might catch your eye. After all, it lures you in with this exact promise on the cover. (At least on the Hungarian* edition.) But what if this only makes your disappointment all the more bitter?

Sara Nowak is not a captivating character

No. She’s a mom. She’s not tattooed either. But she does struggle with anger management issues. This isn’t very useful for a police officer. And, naturally, not for a mother either. In fact, Sara Nowak is quite embarrassing as a mom. She’s the typical overprotective, constantly lecturing person who wants to guide her kids as a moral compass. No wonder they kind of hate her. (You’d hate her too if you were all turned on and went on PronHub to, uh, broaden your horizons a bit, and she barged in to tell you it was immoral towards women.)

Nowak, as a police officer, likes to rough up suspects who indeed deserve it, but how stupid is it to do this constantly in front of witnesses? Is this woman crazy?!

Moreover, despite being a trained martial artist, she somehow always ends up on the losing side in real-life situations.

Ah, damn it!

And why on earth does a lousy vice cop meddle in someone else’s investigation anyway?

So, Gustaf Skördeman didn’t quite pull this off. It’s simply impossible to like Sara Nowak, the main character. Maybe by the very end of Geiger, just a little bit. Perhaps.

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Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann – Book Review

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Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family by Thomas Mann - Book Cover

“WTF!” exclaimed Thomas Mann, the author of “The Magic Mountain,” when he received the Nobel Prize in 1929—for his novel “Buddenbrooks.” Perhaps he himself thought that the story of the Lübeck merchant family Buddenbrook, spanning about three and a half generations in the mid-19th century, was not the most obvious choice for this prestigious award.

What Buddenbrooks is Not About

1, Not about Lübeck at all: You can count on one, maybe two fingers (and that might be generous) how many times the name of the city, where Mann’s family saga almost entirely takes place, is mentioned. You learn absolutely nothing significant about the city; the plot rarely leaves the Buddenbrook residence.

2, Not about trade either: If you expect the current Johann Buddenbrook to to be a 19th-century J.R. Ewing, performing various financial machinations and driving his business rivals crazy, nothing of the sort happens. The Buddenbrooks’ business principle is to only engage in ventures that allow you to sleep well at night. Boring? Not my words!

3, And there is not a single word about the German social processes of the 19th century. The characters in “Buddenbrooks” move exclusively within the wealthy upper middle classes.

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The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel – Book Review

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The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel - Book Cover

After achieving worldwide fame with “Station Eleven,” St. John Mandel waited six years to release her next book. Achieving worldwide fame, obviously, might be like winning a Nobel Prize. Afterward, it’s somehow harder to concentrate on writing. Finding topics becomes more difficult, everything seems to progress slower. In the case of “The Glass Hotel,” it’s not easy to determine what it’s actually about. Because it’s definitely not about a glass hotel.

Is The Glass Hotel just a transparent trick?

Emily St. John Mandel’s book is like listening to a classical music piece. Certain themes, or rather characters, recur throughout, seemingly randomly. One character takes the spotlight at one point, another at another. Some only gain prominence in the final third of the novel, while others appear at the beginning and merely reappear towards the end.

The titular location, the Hotel Caiette, stands in the forest in a secluded cove on Vancouver Island, Canada. It’s only accessible by boat. (It seems they skipped the preliminary market research before construction.) Thirty percent of the book’s characters work here (some only for a fleeting moment), 10 percent are occasional guests, and 5 percent are owners who don’t participate in managing the hotel but have a stake in it for investment purposes.

Alright, ‘The Glass Hotel’ isn’t such a bad title after all, even though the book is much more about the psychology of financial investments.

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Fairy Tale by Stephen King – Book Review

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There are other worlds than these

Fairy Tale by Stephen King – Book cover

Okay, we already know this. Especially Stephen King readers, considering you just have to think of the Dark Tower series, which delves into this theme partially. King has likely written every kind of book by now. However, a fairy tale hasn’t emerged from his witch’s kitchen yet. Until now. Although the fourth installment of the aforementioned series (The Wind Through the Keyhole) comes pretty close. And while it’s typical in the works of the American master for fundamentally unrelated universes to intertwine, it’s not questionable that with a fairy tale, you need to venture into another world. Well, if you can bear with it until then.

Thorough preparation for the unknown

Roughly one-third of Stephen King’s heavyweight Fairy Tale is just the introduction. What other authors accomplish in twenty pages, he generously multiplies by ten. (Perhaps even half would be MORE than enough.) Of course, when it comes to him, this is a forgivable offense. If someone can write so captivatingly about a grumpy old man and his decrepit, old dog, then there’s nothing to do but read on. Especially since King continuously piques your curiosity. And the slow-starting friendship between the old man harboring mythical secrets and the well-meaning, penance-prepared Charlie Reade is also hindered by numerous difficulties and vile villains.

To pave a direct path from the acquaintance of Mr. Bowditch and Charlie to another world, some authorial assistance doesn’t hurt. This thing has a name. It’s called: Radar. Who happens to be a dog.

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