Friday, June 4, 2021

Book Review: The North Face of the Heart

I'm like three days behind in life right now so I'm trying to get everything done in a flurry but I also feel like I'm getting nowhere. I don't know I feel like I have to rush and get everything done at once, because I don't, but maybe just having a summer to-do list is overwhelming? I don't know. I thought I was making my life easier by having something to cross off as I get to it but yeah.... I think it was a fail. 

The North Face of the Heart - Dolores Redondo

In a propulsive thriller by the #1 internationally bestselling author of The Baztán Trilogy, a female detective follows a sadistic killer into the eye of a storm.

Amaia Salazar, a young detective from the north of Spain, has joined a group of trainees at the FBI Academy in Virginia. Haunted by her past and having already tracked down a predator on her own, Amaia is no typical rookie. And this is no ordinary student lecture at Quantico. FBI agent Aloysius Dupree is already well acquainted with Amaia’s skills, her intuition, and her ability to understand evil. He now needs her help in hunting an elusive serial killer dubbed “the composer”—a case that’s been following him his whole life.

From New Jersey to Oklahoma to Texas, his victims are entire families annihilated to coincide with natural disasters, their bodies posed with chilling purpose amid the ruins. Dupree and Amaia are following his trail to New Orleans. The clock is ticking. It’s the eve of what’s threatening to be the worst hurricane in the city’s history. But a troubling call from Amaia’s aunt back home awakens in Amaia the ghosts from her childhood and sends her down a path as dark as that of the coming storm.
Do you feel like I've really been on a thriller kick lately? I definitely do. Normally in the summer I try to read light and fun things and save all of the heavy stuff for fall as the doom of winter is staring me down. So from now until the rest of summer I only have like two thrillers left (I think) but then nothing but light and fun. LIGHT AND FUN, you guys. 

If you are a fan of crime podcasts, you are going to love this book. This is a detective literally tracking a nut job serial killer. You get the clues as she does, you're trying to solve this with her and I was glued to this book. I will admit that I didn't get all of the pieces together so I couldn't solve it, but I loved the ending. I loved the premise of killing people during natural disasters because 1. would their deaths even be noticed as murders and 2. goodbye, forensic evidence! 

If I had to give a critique, I would say the book is almost 500 pages and honestly, this could have been done in 300 or less. It's far too wordy, too much fluff that we don't need and I found myself completely skimming areas about the book because there are some repetitive things and I feel like you only need to mention things one time. One and done. It's my understanding this is a prequel to the author's popular trilogy, which I have not read, and I think that helped me, this was a good introduction to this detective, but if the details mentioned in this book are/were mentioned in the trilogy... oy. It would make for some tedious reading for sure. 

Let's talk crime. OK, the murders were brutal on their own and would make for a crime podcast episode of your dreams. I went into this book hoping it would be written in a way that I could imagine it as that, which I failed at, but it makes me wonder if the audiobook would be more worthwhile- would it be less slow? Again, this investigation felt like it took forever, and I imagine in real life it does take forever, but this is fiction- go faster. HA! 

Overall though? This would be a solid 3 star for me. I liked it, I liked the premise and writing, I feel like if this was 200 pages shorter it would easily have been a 4 star for me. Once you get to the end and you see how things roll out, it puts other things into perspective that I had disregarded as meaningless. Proof that maybe I would be a terrible detective, for sure. It's a good book and if you're into really strong character development, this is definitely up your alley. 

Thank you to Amazon Crossing and Megan Beattie Communications for sending me an ARC for review! 
 
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1 comment:

Why Girls Are Weird said...

Hmm, I'm not a fan of books that drag out. Might be skipping this.