Review: Spine-tingling
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 01 24, 2014
Robyn Tate is a cop in her 40s, pudgy and not exactly a beauty queen. After suffering through a marriage in which she had not had a single orgasm, and then subsequently getting divorced, she's found a new love. Pornography. She is unknowingly being spied on by a mysterious man who calls himself the Slave Master. He knows about her dirty secret, and as he begins to kill his other victims Robyn has to try to find out who he is before he can link videos of her to her whole world. Malicious makes me think of the time I had a laptop with a built-in webcam, which I kept covered with a piece of opaque tape. Perhaps my paranoia had legs to stand on...Malicious feeds on the insecurity in all of us; we've all surely looked up or downloaded one thing or another that we hope never, ever is revealed to another soul. This is an interesting kind of thriller/police drama based on today's tech and our reliance of it.I felt sick to my stomach reading the narrative from the antagonist's POV. Robyn Tate is a strong character, although she seemed far too embarrassed and willing to go to great lengths to hide her porn addiction, sometimes putting the investigation in jeopardy. She admits that she's jealous of her gorgeous coworker, but at the same time she tries to rise above petty office gossip and do her job. Still, I couldn't get over some of the more boneheaded decisions she made during the story. I felt like I didn't get to know that many other characters aside from her partner, Max.Some of the police procedural and medical bits are fuzzily written, kind of like watching one of those crime scene shows and knowing that's not how things are done but realizing that what is portrayed makes for better entertainment. It's not mind-blowing, but overall it's entertaining and decently written. The cover is interesting, featuring negatives of woman next to a creepy, shadowed face. It echoes the main premise of the novel well, although you could be forgiven for thinking this is a horror book. The formatting is fine, I had no issues with it.