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Chris

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Close to a Killer

by Marsha Qualey

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Chris said: " Close to a Killer falls in the genre of mystery and thriller. I enjoy myteries and the cover of this book looked interesting, so I decided to try it. It turned out to be a great book.

The first thing I liked about the book is the wide range of charact Close to a Killer falls in the genre of mystery and thriller. I enjoy myteries and the cover of this book looked interesting, so I decided to try it. It turned out to be a great book.

The first thing I liked about the book is the wide range of characters. There were about two main characters, but there were at least a dozen characters that played important roles in the story too. The town that the characters lived in was poorer, so many of the characters had different issues surrounding poverty or drugs. The main character Daria and her daughter owned a salon. Daria was an ex convict who was in jail for something she hadn't ment to do. All her friends who worked with her were the same way. It was interesting because it shows you that not everybody who goes to jail is scary and mean. Not all convicts are heartless people who like to break the law. The other thing I liked about the book was the plot. After several murders, people in the town thought one of the excons from the salon was responsible. Throughout the story you realize that it was someone else who was repsonsible for the murder, and like most mysteries, the killer turned out to be the least expected. I was really shocked by the ending, but that's what I like about mysteries. It all comes together and makes sense at the end, and "Close to a Killer" was no exception.

There was only one thing I didn't like about the book: the beginning. The beginning was slow and confusing. The author starts out vaguely introducing many different characters and it takes a while to understand who is who. I hate slow starts to books especially when they are confusing, and it caused me to almost abandon this book. However, the plot turned exciting right before I did and I turned out to really like the book. Besides the slow and confusing start, there were no major flaws in "Close to a Killer."

What surprised me was the ending, as I previously stated. The killer turned out to be someone that Daria's daughter Barrie was friends with. The man owned a local book store with his wife that Barrie enjoyed going too. The man always was polite and gave her free books. It turns out that he was in jeopardy of going out of business so he robbed to earn cash. A few robberies went wrong and he killed the home owners. I, however, never expected the killer to be the man from the bookstore. It surprised me at the end, but I was able to put everything together afterwards and it made sense.

There were two things that impacted my thinking. One, that people will do anything for money. The bookstore man killed three people just so he could steel their things and keep his store in business. Even though it's a book, it shows how crazy some people are and what they are willing to do for things like keeping a store in business. The other things that surprised me was how Daria and her friends who worked at her salon got sent to jail. They all had accidently killed someone like with a car for example, and they all had to serve long jail terms. They forever will be labeled as convicts even though they were genuine, nice people. It shows you not to judge someone to quickly by what you hear, because they may be nice people with a different background then you think.

"Close to a Killer" was an overall good book that excelled with it's in depth plot and variety of characters. It's one flaw was the slow and confusing beginning. I still am glad I decided to read it and I rated it a four out of five stars. ...more "

Mar 22, 2011 08:12PM · see review