J. D. Barker
Författare till Dracul
Om författaren
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Verk av J. D. Barker
Associerade verk
Best of Thrillers 1 exemplar
Taggad
Allmänna fakta
- Namn enligt folkbokföringen
- Barker, Jonathan Dylan
- Andra namn
- Barker, JD
- Födelsedag
- 1971-01-07
- Kön
- male
- Nationalitet
- VS
- Födelseort
- Lombard, Illinois, USA
- Yrken
- journalist
ghostwriter
Medlemmar
Recensioner
Listor
Priser
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Associerade författare
Statistik
- Verk
- 15
- Även av
- 1
- Medlemmar
- 2,720
- Popularitet
- #9,444
- Betyg
- 3.9
- Recensioner
- 158
- ISBN
- 186
- Språk
- 12
- Favoritmärkt
- 1
The Fifth to Die picks up with detective Porter, our former hero, lost in a dream sequence about 4MK. I loathe dream sequence beginnings, but I’m going to go easy on this one. Porter and Nash are on the trail of a murderer, riding in Nash’s beloved beater of a classic car, Connie, who becomes a character unto herself, referred to, often, by name. This car gets a fair amount of page time and I have to wonder if the author isn’t restoring some vehicle somewhere as a passion project, or if he wants to.
A girl has gone missing and another is dead, found beneath the ice, wearing the missing girl’s clothes and placed under the ice after the lake froze. Chilling stuff, literally! The scene is a departure from 4MKs MO, in which the eyes, ears, and tongue of his victims are mailed to a loved one before their bodies are discovered, but Porter’s got 4MK on the brain, and of course, the two are connected. Porter and Nash investigate the disappearance/murder with the help of Clair and a cast of supporting characters from Missing Children, the coroner’s office, and, eventually, the FBI.
The body count is high in this one, and these two girls kick off what turns out to be a series of murders involving a new killer (spoiler alert: not really 4MK). Anson Bishop isn’t entirely out of the equation, but the man in the black hat takes center stage as, one-by-one, young women disappear only to reappear dead. What he’s doing to them is straight out of a torture film, and one has to assume that this man does what he does because he is on his last leg and wants to know what’s beyond death, which he might soon be experiencing firsthand. What’s his tie to 4MK? You’re going to have to do a whole lot of reading to figure that out. About 132 chapter’s worth! Yes, I said 132 chapters!
I applauded The Fourth Monkey for the author’s deft handling of a large cast, for his ability to bring together a huge story from multiple viewpoints, but that didn’t happen this time. The writing is brilliant, don’t get me wrong. Snappy dialogue and well-executed setting. Original, page-turning plot, and the procedural angle is, again, done expertly, but with multiple murders and multiple killers, victim’s viewpoints, Porter’s being excused from the case and going rogue, the Libby sub-plot, which comes sort of late, and the hunt for 4MKs mother… it’s too much for one book, and too much of it is unresolved by the end. I feel this is a plotting fail, that the author could have focused on the man in the in the black hat and his connection with 4MK and left the rest for the next installment, and the one after that, and the one after that… This could easily have been two or three books, and I feel the series could go on indefinitely.
Where The Fourth Monkey stands nicely alone, The Fifth to Die ends, literally, with “to be continued.” I do not like this, not after 132 chapters of reading. The next installment is set up without concluding what went on in this one. I have to hope this all plays out in the third book. That we’re not mired in the foster care trope that is the single most unoriginal point of this story, because even if I feel a bit cheated, I did enjoy The Fifth to Die. I will definitely read the next one, but I had high expectations of this author after the first in this series. I’m giving this book a solid 4-star rating, but man, I’m looking for redemption.
*Thank you to the publisher, the author, and NetGalley for an ARC of The Fifth to Die.
… (mer)