Writing this review isn’t going to be easy—this is such an unusual book! As the description says, it’s written from the first person POV of thirteen victims of a secretive killer and thief who is out to dismantle an Australian criminal empire operated by a young genius named Julian Lime. Each victim’s story starts with chapter one, as if they are all separate books, but taken together they tell the complete story.
The author does an amazing job of creating characters with an incredible number of layers—not one of them is cardboard. They are all despicable people who steal, hurt, and kill for a living, and several even have sick perversions, but at the same time, they all have—well, most of them—their good points as well. They are among the worst examples of humanity, but they ARE human.
I lost track of the body count, since besides the assassin’s kills, there is also a gang war going on between Julian Lime’s organization and another criminal gang, so plenty of action. And trying to figure out WHO the assassin is—well, good luck with that! I made an educated guess, but I was only partially right. Everything else was a major surprise!
Can you tell I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book? One final thing—it could stand a copyedit. That usually kills my enjoyment of a book, but it didn’t put a dent in it with this one, and in spite of the errors, I have to give it a 4.5, rounded up, of course, to a 5. I highly recommend it to anyone who loves a good mystery thriller.