Review: A surprisingly entertaining thriller
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 08 11, 2012
Before I write anything else, I'll mention that this book isn't exactly the kind of literature that I usually read (I prefer speculative fiction and quality mainstream fiction), but I have to admit that the author has managed to write quite an entertaining book. (I think it's also good to mention that the last time that I read a thriller was when I read R. Scott Bakker's latest thriller, Disciple of the Dog.)As you have probably guessed, I'm not very experienced when it comes to reading thrillers, so I'm not an expert of this genre. That's why this review is based mostly on how I felt about Death Match and not how I thought it fits in to the thriller genre and how it can be compared to other thrillers.Death Match is an interesting and visceral thriller/mystery novel about wrestling and things related to it. It's almost like a puzzle and the reader gets to pick the pieces and put them together by reading what happens.Here's a bit of information about the plot: The protagonist of this novel, Spar Battersea, is doing a story about a wrestling match between Hobo the Destroyer and his friend, Clown Royale (a.k.a. Ray Kingston). The wrestling match ends when Spar's friend dies and begins to investigate what really happened.In my opinion Jason S. Ridler writes well and he clearly seems to love writing entertaining stories. He managed to bring freshness to the book by writing carefully how the characters talked and acted. I normally tend to avoid thrillers, because I've often been put off by the writing style, but in this case the writing style was surprisingly good and it worked well with the plot.I was great that the author described certain happenings in vivid details. It was interesting to read about the protagonist, his suspicions and his feelings - Spar Battersea was an interesting character.The author delivered all the blows, shouts, mayhem and raw excitement of the fight events quite nicely and in a believable way. The fight scenes felt surprisingly realistic, which was nice, because it was easy to believe what was going.By the way, one of the most interesting things about this book was that the author managed to add a bit of dark humour to the story.Although I don't usually read thrillers, I have to admit that I enjoyed reading Death Match, because it was a fast read which offered an interesting and a bit different kind of a glimpse into the world of wrestling. It was nice to read something different for a change.I'm sure that other readers, who usually avoid thrillers, will find this book interesting, because it's an entertaining book. If you're worried that you know nothing about wrestling, don't be worried, because you don't have to know much about wrestling to enjoy this book.(PS. It'll be interesting to see what Jason S. Ridler writes next.)