Cold Killing

A Novel

De: Luke Delaney

Narrado por: Steve West

Luke Delaney takes the thriller genre to new heights with his debut crime novel, Cold Killing—an unforgettable and haunting duel between a seasoned detective and a brilliant serial killer.

Detective Inspector Sean Corrigan finds the body of a brutally murdered young man in his own South London flat. Corrigan takes the case and soon finds himself embroiled in a deadly cat-and-mouse game with a ruthless and clever serial killer who changes his modus operandi each time he kills, leaving no useable forensic evidence behind...

Former London murder squad detective Luke Delaney has created a cast of memorable and complex characters in this dark and psychological page-turner.

It teeters on the edge

Steve West in my opinion did a great job. I loved the dialects. He may have put the book at a 4 star rating for me. The book was o.k.... The inspector Sean Corrigan did seem to leap to conclusions that no one else would have. I get the idea of why he is supposed to be able to do that, but he could have done it with a little bit better detective work instead of what some would call unbelievable guess work. It does have a pretty good story line overall. It can be extreme for the light hearted.

It takes a lot to rock my world anymore. Set your sights at Medium for this one, and maybe it will surprise you.

J

Are you kidding me?!

The writing is actually quite good in this debut. I'm not a fan of murder mysteries that spend an inordinate amount of time in serial killers heads but I could have forgiven that. What I can't forgive is advancing the plot by having the detective make "intuitive leaps" based on nothing. If I hadn't been listening to this on my iPod, I would have thrown it against the wall.

cold Killing

Great and exciting Crime Story. brilliant performance of Steve West made the story fantastic. Story was well written.

ugh - corrupt non-rational police

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

Too many things are wrong with this book and they would all have to be changed:
- policeman protagonist uses "intuition" to identify the killer.
- police plant evidence in order to aid conviction - this makes the case absurd "We follow the evidence" they say, but in fact they do not
- evidence requirements seem to range from non-existent to ridiculously stringent

Has Cold Killing turned you off from other books in this genre?

No.

What does Steve West bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

I kept listening - I probably would have tossed the book down if I was reading it.

You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

The general plot and the twist were interesting. They were just not enough to outweigh the absurd bits.

Any additional comments?

If cops identify suspects by imagination then they aren't using evidence. This undercuts the whole procedural story and makes it boring.

Bad Story

There is no fact just fat imagination to pin a suspect from the start of the story (I thought I was reading some psychic stuff even though the leading man said he's no psychic explicitly). What if the guessing was wrong? Is this how police normally ruin people's lives when they guess wrong? I have deep problem with the protagonist that he relies on his own sense of violence so arrogantly and his sense is set to be accurate simply because the author did so. I hope the police will have special insight based on something much more concrete than DI Sean Corrigan's psychical vision.

Also I find it rather ridiculous about the idea that people recognize their own kind, because really, nobody knows nobody. AND a policeman is NOT the same kind as a killer regardless they may share the same background. Simply because policemen do not murder innocent people as murderers do!

The murders and murderer is somehow OK set up, the supporting characters are also lovable. I like the police work that has been described in the book (except DI Corrigan's "I know it's him" part). But this is not a acceptable story for me even as a debut.

The narrator is good and it is part of the things that let me finishing the book.