Value Read January 2022 - The Killer in the Snow, by Alex Pine

[Beth]

Am just starting this one and finding the constant references back to book 1 quite annoying! Do I need this information to follow the current mystery and if not, then it's just filler??

[Chris]

Hmm.
Just had a description of a person that reads just like a police one - medium height, colour of eyes, hair. Very perfunctory.
I'm finding the prose style occasionally very... lacking in descriptive imagination. Half way through now. More later.

[Beth]

Amazon description ".... most chilling British detective crime fiction book you’ll read this year"

I think not.

I agree with Christina that the style of writing is certainly not descriptive and sometimes i wonder if the author is working towards a word count. You never just get "the farm", "the scene", "the house"; you get the full name of the Farm. the car they drive in is a "pool car" x 3 in one chapter, not just "a car", "the Car", "the red car", the Corisca ..... how many times do i need to see that they are driving a company car? and is it relevant that I need this fact as part of the solution to the mystery?

This isn't a series that I will follow.

[Chris]

Well, as soon as that little box turned up I guessed what was going on, apart from minor details.

It was okay. 2/5

(If the author is planning on murder in the snow for the entire series, I shan't be joining in, thank you.)

[Beth]

David wrote: "Maybe I'm biased as I nominated it but I thought it was ok.

The only bit that bothered me was the forensics which I wont put here and spoil for those haven't read it but i'll lob in spoiler bit. T..."

we all see/receive/read things differently.

If we hesitated to nominate because of how it might be received by others, we wouldn't be reading anything!

[Beth]

I did finish the book so will give it 2 stars.

if it hadn't had been a club read, i would have aborted 1/2 way through and given it a one.

Reasons for my poor rating are listed in post above.

[Lorraine]

Just finished this, after reading the first one a few days ago i wasn't going to read this one, but as i had paid for it i didn't want to waste the money.

In the first one i disliked James's wife immensely, i found her to be needy and whiney, luckily she didn't appear much in this one.
At the beginning of book 2 James said he was getting a tension headache that he had suffered with for a number of years, but there was no mention of them in the first book.

I really got fed up with the authors use of the word bunch, the sentence 'a bunch of sheep were in the road' really had me shouting at my kindle. Suffice to say both books were marked down for Americanisms.

I can say with complete certainty that i will not be reading anything else by this author.