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The Villager
A tranquil village.
An international conspiracy.
A predator with diabolical intentions.
Returning home to his corner of rural Buckinghamshire, former Royal Marine and Afghanistan veteran Ed Baines receives a disturbing call from his friend Celia.
Celia’s husband Andrew has descended into an emotional abyss, barely able to communicate. Desperate to identify the source of his sudden malaise, Celia turns to Ed for help.
But Andrew’s fate has been sealed. A stranger is stalking the village and in a conspiracy that will rock the very core of international security, Ed’s fellow villagers will be taken one by one until his home is rendered a ghost town.
Fresh from a brutal tour of duty in Kabul, Ed must call upon every facet of his combat experience to outwit this strange and terrifying presence. But it’s a different and more deadly arena here on his own streets, and the enemy has a chilling agenda.
An international conspiracy.
A predator with diabolical intentions.
Returning home to his corner of rural Buckinghamshire, former Royal Marine and Afghanistan veteran Ed Baines receives a disturbing call from his friend Celia.
Celia’s husband Andrew has descended into an emotional abyss, barely able to communicate. Desperate to identify the source of his sudden malaise, Celia turns to Ed for help.
But Andrew’s fate has been sealed. A stranger is stalking the village and in a conspiracy that will rock the very core of international security, Ed’s fellow villagers will be taken one by one until his home is rendered a ghost town.
Fresh from a brutal tour of duty in Kabul, Ed must call upon every facet of his combat experience to outwit this strange and terrifying presence. But it’s a different and more deadly arena here on his own streets, and the enemy has a chilling agenda.
46 pages, Kindle Edition
First published March 12, 2013
9 people want to read
About the author
Matt Kruze
3 books18 followersAuthor and founder of blog The Secrets of their Success, a catalog of interviews with those who've found it!
http://www.thesecretsoftheirsuccess.com
http://www.thesecretsoftheirsuccess.com
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
April 10, 2014
I am always happy to see more books, self published or otherwise, set in the UK and this was part of the attraction of this book. Sadly I did not actually enjoy the book.
On the plus side the story was a bit different, having a man harvesting brain matter from innocent people to sell to a large corporation. The side effect is that the harvested person goes into a health decline and dies due to their brain no longer working the way it should. Thing is, I didn't really connect with this guy, our hero or the victims and the characters were all a bit stale.
I felt that the author over complicates things in his writing, using long winded descriptions when a brief summary would be better. He also uses a lot of fancy words that left you feeling that he had swallowed a dictionary or wanted to show off his vocabulary. Well I can't be bothered reaching for said dictionary to look up every word I don't know especially in a short story so I ended up just ignoring bits of description and moving on. It was also a slow book which I never enjoy and by the time I was halfway through it I had totally lost interest in the plot and was getting bored.
Not for me.
On the plus side the story was a bit different, having a man harvesting brain matter from innocent people to sell to a large corporation. The side effect is that the harvested person goes into a health decline and dies due to their brain no longer working the way it should. Thing is, I didn't really connect with this guy, our hero or the victims and the characters were all a bit stale.
I felt that the author over complicates things in his writing, using long winded descriptions when a brief summary would be better. He also uses a lot of fancy words that left you feeling that he had swallowed a dictionary or wanted to show off his vocabulary. Well I can't be bothered reaching for said dictionary to look up every word I don't know especially in a short story so I ended up just ignoring bits of description and moving on. It was also a slow book which I never enjoy and by the time I was halfway through it I had totally lost interest in the plot and was getting bored.
Not for me.
March 30, 2013
This is a short story with lots of twist and turns. Ed is walking down the street when he notices something that sets him on edge. He needs to find out the truth. However, the truth can lead him down a dangerous path. I enjoyed this short story.
August 22, 2013
International intrigue in a small-town setting? Yeah, that's right up my alley. In The Villager, Matt Kruze gives us a dangerous stranger with connections to several mysterious deaths, and an ex-Royal Marine trying to pull his life back together after a stint in Afghanistan. You know it's only a matter of time before their paths cross, and things start getting messy...
Pros: Matt Kruze has a really tight, tense style. I don't often read novellas in a single sitting, but I'm not exaggerating when I say I blew through this story from start to finish without pause. It sinks its hooks in deep, fast. Kruze also has a deep technical knowledge that gives his depiction of ex-Marine Ed Baines a real tangibility. The story itself was suitably twisty and turny, with a few really cool developments that left me thinking _damn, I wish I'd thought of that first._
Cons: I know it's a cliche to say _I wanted more_, but I wanted more. The ending was a bit abrupt, and I was so enjoying the world of The Villager that I felt a little cheated when I reached the conclusion. But that's the sign of an effective teaser, right? The second con: the vocabulary. As a guy with a lot of reading and a couple million words of prose under his belt, it's not often that I come across words I don't know. So I was surprised when The Villager sent me reaching for my dictionary... not once, or twice, but maybe five or six times. So expect to learn a couple new words before the end!
On the whole, if you want a quick, suspenseful read for a budget price and don't mind a sudden ending, this is the story for you. 4/5 stars!
Pros: Matt Kruze has a really tight, tense style. I don't often read novellas in a single sitting, but I'm not exaggerating when I say I blew through this story from start to finish without pause. It sinks its hooks in deep, fast. Kruze also has a deep technical knowledge that gives his depiction of ex-Marine Ed Baines a real tangibility. The story itself was suitably twisty and turny, with a few really cool developments that left me thinking _damn, I wish I'd thought of that first._
Cons: I know it's a cliche to say _I wanted more_, but I wanted more. The ending was a bit abrupt, and I was so enjoying the world of The Villager that I felt a little cheated when I reached the conclusion. But that's the sign of an effective teaser, right? The second con: the vocabulary. As a guy with a lot of reading and a couple million words of prose under his belt, it's not often that I come across words I don't know. So I was surprised when The Villager sent me reaching for my dictionary... not once, or twice, but maybe five or six times. So expect to learn a couple new words before the end!
On the whole, if you want a quick, suspenseful read for a budget price and don't mind a sudden ending, this is the story for you. 4/5 stars!
May 20, 2015
This novella is a British thriller about a suspicious stranger who comes into a rural village. Is he up to no good? Can our resident protect the village against any potential threat posed by this visitor?
What follows is a cat and mouse game where both men use their skills in a classic, hunter and the hunted. Matt has written his story in what he calls “parts” rather than chapters. However these parts do not form logical breaks as the next part continues on the same day! There is plenty of tension in this story as the plot unfolds. The action is quick and snappy which makes for a thrilling read.
Matt does use a lot of obscure words in his book making the average reader do a lot of tapping to bring up the dictionary definition. He appears to be trying hard to raise his game by using an extensive vocabulary but I do not feel that a thriller of this type needs these obscure words. I got the feeling he had been on a creative writing course and was ticking the boxes as the story went on.
I found The Villager to be an okay read in the way that it was entertaining. It did not have an attitude though and the writing was quite sterile. His style was of a magazine story writer, giving you the feel this was a throwaway book. I finished this story and thought it was average, a pleasant read that I will vote the middle score of 3 stars.
The Villager is available as an Amazon Kindle eBook and was written in 2013.
What follows is a cat and mouse game where both men use their skills in a classic, hunter and the hunted. Matt has written his story in what he calls “parts” rather than chapters. However these parts do not form logical breaks as the next part continues on the same day! There is plenty of tension in this story as the plot unfolds. The action is quick and snappy which makes for a thrilling read.
Matt does use a lot of obscure words in his book making the average reader do a lot of tapping to bring up the dictionary definition. He appears to be trying hard to raise his game by using an extensive vocabulary but I do not feel that a thriller of this type needs these obscure words. I got the feeling he had been on a creative writing course and was ticking the boxes as the story went on.
I found The Villager to be an okay read in the way that it was entertaining. It did not have an attitude though and the writing was quite sterile. His style was of a magazine story writer, giving you the feel this was a throwaway book. I finished this story and thought it was average, a pleasant read that I will vote the middle score of 3 stars.
The Villager is available as an Amazon Kindle eBook and was written in 2013.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews