Review: GREAT WRITING!
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 12 1, 2013
Okay, this was a fantastic read, but, it was also a massively long-winded book. It sometimes felt as though the story was never going to end.Some of the issues I had with it is that I found the book description a little misleading. Due to the title of the book I was under the impression the reader is going to get a lot of the story from Melissa’s point view, her fears, her suffering, and her struggle to survive. Though this does happen, it is minimal and felt more like an afterthought. What we get instead is every miniscule detail of Sheriff Lester P. Morrison’s daily doings. Yes, he’s searching for the missing girl and all that, but geez louise, I really don’t care about his morning routine, his lengthy conversations with his very adorable dog, Harley, or Billy Ray’s time’s in Iraq. What I wanted was for Melissa to be found, without all the fluff in between. There were times I had to put the book down and read something else because I got bored with some of it.Also, Melissa took being locked in the ‘fraidy hole’ very much in her stride. Or let me rather say she quickly accepted the situation she was in and hardly panicked about the fact that she was left in there to die.Apart from these minor complaints, I found the writing to be excellent. Although I thought the story to be unnecessarily drawn out, I can’t argue that the writing is simply spectacular, and despite my complaints about Lester’s daily rituals, I have to admit that the author knows his characters exceptionally well.At 40% I thought I knew who raped and assaulted Melissa, but luckily I was proven wrong. Overall I think this is a good read and would recommend it to anyone who enjoys small town crime novels.