Okay book, overall. This is my first Frank Quinn novel (I didn't realize it was the 4th in a series when I got it). It had a lot good going for it, but enough of it that was--not bad--bugged me to even it out into 'Eh' territory.

But first to get this out of the way: If you happen to glance at my status updates--ignore my twitchiness about field dressing deer. It's a book of fiction, and if I can ignore unrealistic stuff everywhere else, I should be able to overlook the deer stuff, too. But I still think it was highly exaggerated as far as how much blood & everything is concerned.

Tangent finished.

The good!

Very well written. He's got a good grasp of detail, and gives just enough to flesh out the scene and the characters without being overbearing or too wordy. It reads well, you get with the characters, and the scenes are paced well. Not much else to say. In particular, Pearl & Quinn's relationship and dance concerning parents and new girlfriends was well detailed and you could feel the tension. And of course all the politics and the like governing the investigation.

The killer was pretty fun, too. You got to like him, and experienced a taste of the same charisma as the rest of his victims.

Story wise, I liked the plot. It was a good, complicated thriller that had a lot of action and various ends tying together. Lutz did a good job getting such a complex murder scheme working and the twist at the end was up there, too. Overall, I enjoyed the plot/story.

Where it lost me:

There is way, way too much going on in this book with far too many people. Every single character who's introduced gets a slew of backstory, and insight into their heads--minor or major. After a while, you start to lose track of who's actually important to the plot and who isn't. (Example: I don't need four pages of backstory for someone in two scenes. The backstory was almost as long as their actual role in the story...) I know for certain I got a few of the characters mixed up (in at least one case, though, I think it was intentional and I didn't mind that one so much by the end), but it was frustrating enough that I almost put the book down once or twice.

The main storyline scenes? Great. And I didn't even mind the two subplots involving Pearl's mole, and Quinn's love life. They added quite a bit to the main storyline via the Detective's personal lives. The rest of it got to be a bit much, and didn't feel like they added anything substantial other than excess detail.

The worst offender was probably an entire subplot dedicated to a battered wife and her husband. This one bugged me in particular, because it had nothing to do with the main storyline. I don't even think it was set up to look like a red herring, either--it was just there. What's worse, if you lifted that entire storyline and all its scenes from the book, it would have made an amazing little novella/short story. It was a very good look into the emotions of a desperate woman and her relationship to her husband & I could see myself loving it as a stand alone. It was a great little read--it just didn't belong filtered through out another storyline that already had five or six threads of plot weaving together. It was that one story too many that was tied together into the main storyline by two pages of text in the last ten or so pages of the book.

But, that was a personal issue. All the scenes, granted, are well written and if you like that sort of extra detail & involvement with everyone in the book, important or not, you'll probably enjoy it.

As it stands, well written, good plot, with maybe one too many subplots. Worth a read. :)