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Top reviews from the United States

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Kerry Kilburn

Good procedural, disappointing ending

Reviewed in the United States on March 27, 2020

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I have mixed feelings about this book. At first, I was put off (as I nearly always am) by the present-tense narration - something I just have a hard time enjoying. But the writing is generally strong, and the lead character interesting and like able enough to have kept me reading. She was ably supported by a good cast of secondary characters as well. The mystery was pretty good, although the solution seemed to me to come from out of left field, which was really annoying. As for the ending *******SPOILER ALERT******
Why, oh why, did the author write Frankie into a repetition of the action that got her into trouble in the case preceding the one told in this story, and why, oh why, did she once again have to end up completely helpless and needing to be rescued by her male colleagues??? I was so disappointed - this is not the kind of empowering role model I want to read about. Hence the 3 stars. ***********END SPOILER ALERT********

I was disappointed enough in the ending - both its coming from left field and the other thing - that I am not sure I will read the sequel - not right now, anyway. I may give it a go in hopes that things get better, because I really did like Frankie and her colleagues.

Kindle Reader

Not bad

Reviewed in the United States on January 30, 2020

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The story starts out with a suicide that the police and pathologist suspect may not be a suicide after all, and as in all crime thrillers that's what we believe as well. This was a good read, but not my favourite book of recent reads for a few reasons. I enjoyed the writing and the way the author uses the enigma of the dead woman in the opening chapters, but ultimately I enjoy a crime novel that allows the reader to be able to work out the puzzle, usually 'whodunnit'.
In this we are introduced to that person late in the book and the lie told is rather obvious. However, I enjoyed the book and characters enough to read another.

Joan

Great new author !

Reviewed in the United States on April 23, 2018

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I was hooked from the first page and didn't figure out who the killer was until almost the end of the book. The suspense was great and the story line kept me guessing. I hope the author continues and makes this a series.

JayneAJ

Too Close to Breathe

Reviewed in the United States on January 5, 2020

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This was really well done, particularly for a debut. We have strong protagonist in Frankie and she has a great supporting cast. I found the mystery to be rather cleverly plotted. There were some great twists and turns but none of it was fluff.

I think my primary disappointment is that the location did not figure much into the story line. Every once in a while, something would remind me where it was supposed to be set but location as a whole was not a feature.

Hugh C McGinley

Suspenseful

Reviewed in the United States on October 21, 2019

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Well written and suspenseful. After the first 150 or so pages, it was hard to stop reading because the book just continued to build on the mystery.

Bookluver

Give away

Reviewed in the United States on July 10, 2020

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I read about 4-5 books a week, this one didn't make the cut. After 5 pages I couldn't take it anymore. Donated

Amazon Customer

Enjoyable

Reviewed in the United States on June 4, 2020

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I enjoyed the book and the mystery. I was in Dublin once so I felt like I knew the locations that were mentioned.

alinefromabook

These people’s lives are more twisty than a snake but it really makes for a great story. Just when you think you’ve got it ...

Reviewed in the United States on April 17, 2018

Detective Chief Superintendent Frankie Sheehan has just returned to duty after nearly being killed in pursuit of a case. Assistant Commissioner Jack Clancy has assigned her team to investigate a presumed suicide. The coroner has an “uneasy feeling” about this case, hence it being assigned to Frankie’s team, but Clancy is still not sure that Frankie is ready to be back on the job. With Detective Baz Harwood as her partner they quickly determine that this is in fact a murder but that’s when the hard part starts. As they delve into the lives of the victim and her husband they quickly uncover multiple affairs, Dark Web activity, and the underbelly of Dublin. But the circumstances of this case are also triggering flashbacks for Frankie and the danger may be all too real

So let’s start with the plot. These people’s lives are more twisty than a snake but it really makes for a great story. Just when you think you’ve got it figured out, you trip over another clue and end up going in a different direction. Characters: Frankie Sheehan is a great character. She’s tough and persistent, as you would expect a detective to be, but she’s much more than that. I think the author did an especially good job with the flashback scenes because they gave you a sense of Frankie as a vulnerable person. I really enjoyed Detective Harwood also. He knows how to push Frankie’s button but he also takes it very seriously when he says he’s got her back. This is the author’s first novel and I think it’s a great debut, definitely worth the read.

Top reviews from other countries

J. Trainer

I felt cheated

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 5, 2019

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DCS Frankie Sheehan, a Dublin police officer, investigates what at first appears to be a suicide by hanging but soon decides it’s murder. Then follows a fairly standard ‘Police-procedural-cum-whodunit’.

First the good bits. Olivia Kiernan is a good writer, she’s engaging and uses language well. The plot is developed well and the characters, on the whole, well developed and rounded. Some other reviewers have accused the cast of being clichés but I did not find that particularly so.

I have a couple of slight niggles. The book is set in Dublin and its environ but we get very little sense of that with no more than a few street names and so on. It could just as easily have been set in London or Paris.

Secondly, Kiernan seems to work too hard on the ‘internal’ reactions of her lead. Her protagonist constantly talks about her dry mouth, her twitching muscles and so on to such an extent it started to feel like an anatomy lesson. But both of these would have brought my assessment to no lower than 4-stars.

BUT:

In a book of this genre the rules are rigid and fixed. The protagonist/detective (and the reader) are introduced to the case, interview the witnesses, gather the clues and reveal the culprit. It must be perfectly possible for the astute reader to infer the murderer … possibly even before the detective does.

What Kiernan does, however, is very different. (Slight plot spoiler here, so if that sort of thing worries you, stop here.) She introduces a new character near the end who then, with no evidence or purpose, reveals himself to be the murderer.

So all of the preceding investigations were totally pointless.

Spicewalker

Fascinating start to the series

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 13, 2018

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When I started to read this book I have to be honest, I was wondering quite where it was going to take me. A Detective called to the scene of a suspected suicide, it seems innocuous enough. And yet there is something amiss, something which makes this scene seem a little too perfect. And so the story begins, one which has so many twists and unexpected turns that you may be surprised to learn that this as a debut novel.

I don't want to go too far into the plot, other than to say what should have been a routine call very quickly escalates into something far more sinister. This is no simple case as DCS Frankie Sheehan begins to uncover the victims home life, it becomes clear just how complicate and intense this story truly will be. Now it touches on some very dark subjects, not just that of suicide, and as more victims are discovered you have to wonder just how depraved this killer may be and just what their motivations really are.

Frankie Sheehan is a fascinating character. Just back from a period of sick leave having been injured in the line of duty, she is a trained profiler. Sheehan has her own demons to fight, if only because the cause of her absence, and her ongoing battle with pain, is about to go to court. She is feisty and not easily swayed in her opinion and her determination to draw and end to the investigation is driven by both personal and professional pride. She is a difficult character to judge, her past clouding her judgment at times but ultimately there is something about her that holds the readers attention throughout, which is just as well as the story is told in first person from her perspective. It is a difficult balance, one which the author manages to pull off, engaging the reader and drawing them into Frankie's world even if she is someone you may not always like.

This is not a particularly fast paced novel, and is set over several months as the Detectives on the investigation hit a series of frustrating dead ends which trying to identify and locate their suspects. There are moments of true jeopardy, especially towards the end as the killer is in their sights, but there is more contemplation and investigation than there are full on action scenes. Whilst some of the deaths included are violent, it is kept off the page although heavily alluded to, the level of violence and, in some cases torture, clear without being spelt out to the reader in any graphic way. In fact some times is feels as though scenes are jumped over, looked at in retrospect by the Detectives rather than the reader being present during an interview for example, which is perhaps one of the few niggles I had with the book. I can understand in some scenes, one in particular in which Frankie is heavily involved, but it does have an impact on the narrative, giving it a very unique, almost jumpy rather than natural flow. As a profiler, I'd have like to see the interviews covered in a little more depth. It is an interesting idea perhaps not fully explored in this book.

As I alluded to earlier, this is a very assured debut and I am intrigued to see how the author develops these characters moving forward. Frankie and her team, especially Baz and Emer who I found fascinating, certainly have scope for developing into a key series, the next book being released in 2019.

Rachel D

Well written, well researched, well worth reading

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 21, 2018

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The subject matter in this book- BDSM- didn’t really appeal to me. I would normally avoid books like that. However this book is so well written and researched, that I found myself abandoning all the things I should be doing to read it in one sitting. The story involves DCS Frankie returning to work after being injured on duty while investigating a knife crime. She is given a team of detectives to investigate the death of a microbiologist, followed by that of her husband’s lover. The husband also turns up dead. There is lot of stuff on microbiology, and medical research. More on a slow acting poison called thallium and it’s antidote- Prussian blue.
It was a book I will remember and look onward to more from this author. I had only one slight niggle. Would a senior police officer, a DCS , been so hands on in the nitty gritty of an investigation ? At one point Frankie is getting an Inspector to look through CCTV.c

Father Ted

"Cancel the hype"

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 15, 2020

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You can soon tell that this was written by someone with more than a grounding in creative writing. The language and imagery is superb throughout. However, there's no substitute for a well thought out story line with a satisfactory ending. It's easy to get lost in the word pictures and forget to work out the killer's identity.
***Spoiler Alert***
Perhaps that was the point. They weren't there for the reader to discover with their own deductive reasoning. Out of nowhere, the magician produced a rabbit, and all the careful characterisation that had gone before was for naught.
The Product Page influenced by the publisher yet again promises so much. Cancel the hype. The writing is superb, but the plot was flawed.

Stephen Clark

Attention keeping

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 15, 2018

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This novel is tightly written in a punchy style. Not immediately obvious that the protagonist is a woman attacked in the course of a criminal incident which, as it turns out, is linked to other investigations. The subject matter opens a window into a world of S&M (without being too explicit) as the underlying motive for a series of murders and attempted murders. An easy read but at times the credibility of some characters seems strange.

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