This was one of my Dominican Vacation reads. As I read so many books this week, I will be doing a more compact review so I can catch up. A Killer Debut - 4 Stars The novel is set in the cold and quiet streets of Duluth, Minnesota. These are not the mean streets of Detroit and major crime is not an everyday occurrence. A year after the mysterious disappearance of a teenaged girl, the Detective Jonathan Stride is faced with another disappearance that is eerily similar. The investigation reveals secrets buried deep within his city with an investigation that begins in "wholesome" streets of Duluth to the "immoral" streets of Las Vegas. The Good Brian Freeman wrote a very impressive debut novel. Immoral was nominated for several prestigious award for best debut and rightly so. The story is sharply written with a wonderfully developed main character. In my opinion, it is the wonderfully delicious development of the VICTIM that sets this novel apart. (I apologize if that sounds creepy but it is an apt description :) The second of missing girls and main victim is Rachel Deese. She is beautiful, intelligent, sexually promiscuous and all around devious. She relishes is playing with emotion and hurting those close to her. I cannot recall another novel where the victim was less likeable. As descriptions suggest, we are left guessing as to whether our victim has kidnapped and murdered or if she is playing a game. The novel resolves the questions but not in the way you expect. I found myself rooting against the victim and hoping she dead. Maybe this makes me a bad person or a psychological need for revenge against those "mean girls" from my high school days. While the novel may have exposed a need for a psychiatric evaluation, it was a thrilling and satisfying read. The Bad Sex was theme that woven throughout the novel. While there were several sexual encounters that were not graphic, the theme is pervasive. I found that usage was often unnecessary as it didn't take long to the get the point. The major problem with the novel is that is seemingly has two lives. There is a shift in time (three years or so into the future) that occurs about 2/3 of the way into the book. The author builds characters and relationships and summarily destroys some of the them over the course of break in time. For me, it was a frustrating misuse of characters and I felt that it detracted from the story. As new relationships were added in the last third, the story lost a sense of cohesion that had been so tightly maintained. While the break in time makes sense for the story, the break in continuity turned a potential masterpiece of a first novel into a very good debut.Overall, the story was excellent, the writing was clean and the pacing was fast. Jonathan Stride is a compelling and interesting character. The ending of novel poses some interesting questions for the character and leaves him to make some difficult decisions. So major changes could be in store for book 2 and I look forward to continuing this series.
First of all I am not a fan of these kinds of novels, but I decided it was time to step out of my comfort zone. I guess that was my first mistake.The plot was interesting enough to take me to Chapter 15. However, at that point I had already grown tired of the alternating perspectives and the haphazard "police investigation". SPOILER ALERT[I've watched enough criminal based shows to know that after 3 or 4 weeks of investigation no lawyer should have felt secure enough to think to win a trial based on circumstantial evidence.] Not only was the general timeline of the book skewed the entire execution seemed haphazard one minute we were in court, SPOILER ALERT[the next minute the main suspect was dead in the court room].At chapter 21 I gave up. I took to google to find out what the hell was going on, because it was obvious that Brian Freeman was also clueless as to what was going on as well. As usual google failed to give me enough to be satisfied with the ending. So I skipped through it. There was no way I would spend my entire weekend being pissed at wasting my week reading it. At the end of it all I sat in my office at work glaring at this 366 pages of utter mess of a book. It took the protagonist 20 chapters to realize he was going in the wrong direction. It took the protagonist only 4 chapters to solve two murders that were linked from the first chapter...I couldn't believe I chose to get over this genre with this book first. I'm very grateful to myself for skipping through, but Mr. Freeman needs to revisit this book. His well developed characters deserve it. I enjoyed his details at giving us a look into each character, BUT NOTHING MORE. It was a struggling in understanding and unraveling the story. I'm very disappointed that his editor did not realize that the story was much too convoluted and disorganized to appeal to every kind of reader out there. I'm sorry to say Mr. Freeman but I won't be reading anymore of your books, and I am certainly glad I borrowed this book rather than purchase.
What do You think about Immoral (2015)?
Neide wrote: "Sim, ainda tenho 3, hehe.. mas posso ter pena na mesma :p Mas olha, parece que agora a nossa Camilla tb vai entrar novamente em acção, o 5º livro vem aí :DFizeste muito bem Renata!! Vai valer a p..."É verdade. É uma(?) lista que não acaba mais! E isso não é realmente uma coisa ruim, não é mesmo? Eu por exemplo não estou reclamando. lol :D
—Neide Parafitas
Immoral is the first book in the Jonathan Stride series, and what an excellent debut it was! It starts off with a bang, as we learn that a teenage girl has just gone missing on a wintery Minnesota night. The incident is reminiscent of the disappearance of another teenage girl who went missing just one year ago... a girl whose body was never found, and no one was ever prosecuted. I'm glad I read this one first rather than starting with the fourth book in the series, In the Dark, which I almost picked up to read a couple of times. I'll be reading this series in order.Loved it!
—Kelly
IMMORAL (Police Procedural-Duluth, MN-Cont) – ExFreeman, Brian – 1st bookSt. Martin’s Minotaur, 2005- HardcoverLt. Jonathan Stride, is investigating the second case of a girl who has disappeared without a trace. The first girl was sweet, well-liked and never found. Now a second girl has disappeared, but she’s hard, promiscuous, has a very adversarial relationship with her mother and there’s something not right about the relationship with the step father. Are the cases related? Are the girls dead or runaways? *** Boy, what an amazing debut. Freeman has constructed a story with strong, interesting characters. Their strengths and shortcomings are all very real. Freeman’s sense of place and dialogue are strong and involving. His plot is tight, gripping and has more twists than Lombard Street all the way to the very end. I was never able to project where the story was going next. This is a captivating book and I highly recommend it.
—LJ
