White Death

Franco Patrese #3

by Daniel Blake

The heart-stopping new thriller featuring FBI Special Agent Frank Patrese, on the trail of a crazed serial killer targeting Ivy League colleges.

ONE GAME
Two weeks before Kwasi King, chess’s answer to Muhammad Ali, is due to defend his world title, his mother is found brutally murdered yards from Yale University. A tarot card has been left next to her dismembered body.

TWO PLAYERS
Soon, more bodies turn up at other Ivy League colleges, all with tarot cards. But while some have been killed in a frenzy, others were dispatched with clinical precision. It looks like FBI Special Agent Franco Patrese’s looking for not just one killer, but two.

CHECK MATE
And while Patrese hunts, he knows that he too is being hunted, for he’s received his own tarot card. The Fool. Could he be the next victim of this macabre intellectual battle?

Genres: Crime

424 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2012

About the author

Pseudonym of Boris Starling

Reviews

[Gordon Johnston · Rating 2 out of 5]

An interesting idea but not well executed. The plot relies on way too many coincidences and leaps of logic by the investigators. The pace is generally slow with all characters introduced by large chunks of introduction and entire chapters of background in which nothing at all actually happens. And all of the major twists are very predictable.

[Peter · Rating 2 out of 5]

Chess is central to this serial killer-type novel, a page-turner if with too much telling rather than showing and much grosser than expected. Franco Patrese is an FBI agent investigating decapitation murders around Ivy League New York and Connecticut, one victim the mother of an unstable Fischer-type black chess world champion. Many characters have the names of famous players and an AI chess computer is critical as a cat-and-mouse battle, more decapitations and red-herrings climax in a gruesome chess game.

[Ldpearson · Rating 1 out of 5]

Horrific. Gruesome. Unrealistic characters. And to top it all off, the last 6 pages of my book were missing. No loss.

[Michaela · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very graphic. And quite bloody.

FBI procedural something I love. I enjoyed Franco. A proper fbi agent. Would like to read more of this series but it did work as a stand-alone.

[Gabrielle V. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Graphics of the murders are spot-on. Only reason I’d give it stars at all.

[Sue Hunter · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was unable to put this down. From the first pages the pace is fast, and the body count mounts. Agent Patrese is called in to solve the crimes. One killer or two? There are some distinct similarities between some of the killings, but others seem quite different, although clearly linked in some way. The theories are tested, refined, and often thrown out. I have not read anything by Daniel Blake before, but I shall definitely look out for his books in the future. An excellent read.

[Any Length · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book could have benefited from having about 200 pages cut out.
It was interminably long and gave way too much detail about chess. Fair enough, do your research and give some correct info, but this was over the top. The day to day of the case also was way too long. In the end I just about prayed for the book to finish as it was becoming tedious to listen any longer.

Some of the characters did not to stay true to themselves either.

[melissa taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gripping

I found this book while on holiday and didn't get to finish it so I downloaded it as soon as I got back home. I couldn't stop reading, from the very first page I was hooked. The only thing I didn't like was the ending,all that build up for a very abrupt ending but other than a fantastic read

[Ross Whamond · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really good well paced thriller.With enough twists to keep you enthralled and intrigued until the end.

Looking forward to his next Franco Patrese book.

[Tiina · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ouch! Another book not finished.
The opening was gross. The mystery had enough focus, but there was too much going on related to tarot and mystique. Not for me, this one either.

[Katie Coward]

Not a good book!

[Les Wilson · Rating 2 out of 5]

A very boring book. I would have liked to have given it 1* but that would be a bit unfair. See Amy's review.

[Gulcin Bilgin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Should have had a better end for such a glorious story. Little childish and Patrese acted like a fool most of the time. Still fluent but one of the mediocre books.

[Andrew Kirkhouse · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a bad read, kept me interested all the way through

[Jennie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ugh. SO canned. Not very good. Disappointing.

[Victor Borgeest]

just a read