Book Of The Month February, 2011
You Are NextKatia Lief
Detective Karin Schaeffer was a happily married mother in New York when her life was shattered by a serial killer. The cops call Martin Price JPP – Just Plain Psycho – because of the brutality of his attacks. To the press and the public, however, he is known as The Domino Killer because he systematically murders whole families, leaving a trail of dominoes as numerical clues to the next victim. After Price murdered Karin’s husband and daughter, she attempted suicide. Now he has escaped prison and is on his way to find her…And Karin wants to die. When Price finally strikes, she almost lets him take her life but comes to her senses when she realises he won’t stop with her – he will go on to hunt other members of her family. She fights back, and barely escapes with her life. With the help of her former partner and close friend, Mac, she struggles to overcome despair and save her remaining loved ones. But no sooner is Price locked away than they are confronted with the revelation that he does not work alone. Then Karin’s young niece disappears…
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Latest Comment
A good thriller, from an author I haven’t come across before. The book gets straight into the action, as the serial killer makes an early entrance. A great page turner, but not for the feint hearted!
What We Think
Prince Philip Hospital Library Book Club on You Are Next:
Many of the bookclub members do not as a rule read crime, whereas some of the bookclub are more hardened crime readers. This caused a bit of a divide in the group with some people really enjoying the novel and others finding it a bit too basic for them. We all agreed that this would be an excellent starting point for someone new to the crime genre. However, we all felt that thrillers in general are not built for the kind of scrutiny that our bookclub gives its books.
It was a fairly formulaic novel, as crime novels go, which aggravated some readers but others felt this was almost comforting in its certainty of what would be coming next. We felt that it was very linear in its movement from one scene to the next, this might make it a better film than it was a book. There are certain scenes, for example the party, that we really could see as a film.
We all felt very sorry for Karin and the things she had to go through both before and during this book. However, there was a little too much focus on her depression and suicidal tendencies for us not to feel a bit annoyed with her at times. The changes in the relationship between Karin and Mac was interesting to follow, although it was a little odd at times, eg. during the ComiCon scenes.
Overall this was a book that we mostly enjoyed, but not as a bookclub selection. We gave this book an average of 6 out of 10. Many of the bookclub copies have been lent to others, meaning this was a book people had enjoyed!
A good thriller, from an author I haven’t come across before. The book gets straight into the action, as the serial killer makes an early entrance. A great page turner, but not for the feint hearted!
Posted by SaraB on 2011-02-17