Mike Finn > Recent Status Updates

A smooth start. Unusual mystery wrapped around Prepper culture. Engaging core characters. Simple but skillful storytelling that manages the set-up without any clunky info dumps or clichéd descriptions of people. Believable dialogue. My curiosity has been piqued by Mercy. I'm looking forwad to learning her backstory as well as seeing the murder mystery unfold.

This was immediately immersive. The two main male characters are easy to believe in and hard to like. Men whose lives are a self-made mess. Unpleasant, defensive, self-deluding men who treat women badly. You can see why they're so easy to believe in.

This is a book that's often described as 'uplifting'. It's not doing that for me. I'm finding it to be a sad book. Perhaps because this isn't historical fiction for me. I remember what England was like when the main character was a teenager. Her grim description are a reminder rather than a discovery.

I like the story. The structure works. The memories are vivid. Yet there isn't the intimacy I'd expect.

The writing is rich without being distracting.

I can feel the control in the pacing - establishing time and place and introducing the women - all cleverly done through the eyes of a 13 year old boy who is clever but inexperienced - leaving plenty of room for me to overlay my own observations and interpretations.

This is going to be good.

The start tries just a little too hard but I like the set up. I think this going to be light unchallenging entertainment that will make me smile from time to time.

This is a very sad story. Actually, two very sad stories, both of them believable. Both women have events in their past that have caused lasting harm. One of them is dying. The other one is leading a constrained, lonely, disatisfying life.

Yet, despite the gloom, I find myself wanting to see if / how these two women can help each other.

I'm setting this aside. There's nothing wrong with the book, I'm just too old for it.

This book took me inside the head of a life-long serial killer and showed her as being neurodivergent in a way that allows, even invites her to kill.

She's low on empathy and has had to work on her insight in order to pass as an 'ordinary person',

Two things made the book exceptional: that our killer is stuggling to cope with her grief for her recently deceased father and her memories of her viscious mother.

Well, the writing hasn't gotten any better so I'm hoping the story will make reading this worthwhile.

My head is spinning. What an ending!

Great storytelling. Great narration. Great suspense and a clever, satifying conclusion.

I love the complexity that's been introduced by putting Claire under threat from someone who may be as dangerous as she is. It's not one of those "which of these two villains would win in a fight" testosterone games. It feels like a preparation for lethal, ruthless combat. That Claire's preparations are so calm and quiet raises the threat level.

The scenes from Claire's childhood are the hardest to take.

I've no idea where this is going but I absolutely have to find out.

This is brutal, angry, violent, disturbingly real. Not my idea of a 'comic thriller'. Thinking of this as a comedy seems like a way of distancing the reader from the raw emotions in this book: rage, grief, pain. If this book was about a man doing what Claire is doing, no one would think it was funny. Perhaps its a form of misogyny that Hannibal Lector is a scary monster but Claire get's labelled as quirky and comic?

That was fun in a quirky way. Looks like I've found a new Urban Fantasy series to follow.