Review: Not dark enough, not suspenseful enough
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 06 20, 2014
Deceiver is a short novella, and in my opinion, too short. We learn about main character Matt Newman, who just lost his wife. She was murdered, and the police have no leads. Matt struggles through her funeral and the aftermath, and coming to terms with loosing his spouse. But then he finds a diary supposedly belonging to his deceased spouse. He doesn’t want to at first, but then he starts reading it. The diary reveals a side of his wife Matt had no idea even existed.Is she still the woman he fell in love with, or a deranged serial killer? Can he still love her if she turns out to be the latter?The subject matter is dark, sure, but it wasn’t dark enough for my tastes. The murders are described rather superficially. It’s more about Matt’s emotional turmoil than about creepiness. There’s some sense of foreboding, but there’s no creepy atmosphere, no fear crawling up on the reader’s skin. We get a good sense of Matt, and his personality, and considering the limited amount of characters, the novella length makes sense, but it’s too short to establish suspense. I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.