Review: Mystery, Conspiracies, Excellent Suspense! Highly Recommended!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 03 10, 2014
The captivating thing about this book, The Card Counter,  is going through this maze of a mystery suspense with Detective Jake Walker; experiencing the depth of his character while sitting at the edge of your seat, and flipping the pages because author James Kipling  strategically  plays  one  thrilling `card' after another and you just can't put the book down!  The title of the book is most appropriate on so many different levels...the reader is exposed to a mystery  in which several cards are playing all at once  - both personally and professionally -  and  while reading,  one is breathtakingly anticipating  when and who will finally play the `royal flush'.  Brilliant!From the get go, James Kipling's writing style draws the reader in with his  plain,  down to earth language which is indicative of the main character and the seemingly simple life he leads.  The use of crude descriptive language from time to time is symbolic of the harsh reality of the life that Detective Walker and his co-workers face as cops in a community where crime increasingly becomes the order of the day.Narrating in the first person is another clever strategy of the author as it pulls the reader into the action and without realizing it, the reader becomes one of the characters and is hopelessly involved in putting the pieces of the puzzle together as well.The depth of the story however, lies in seeing life through Detective Walker's eyes as a parent and a crime fighter.  Symbolically, it's hard to separate the two. Case in point is when the detective admits his paranoia where "I would come upon the crime scene and my own child is the victim". He is to be admired as a role model cop in his community. One who engages in violence prevention "my presence did exactly what I hoped it would do: make the man realize that no matter how bad some things get, it's never worth going to jail over". He uses his experience as a cop to guide his parenting "I've seen too many of those parents sitting in the police station ...unable to explain why their kids would do the horrible things they're being charged with".  The love and care he expresses for his `girls' takes the story into another genre.So, although  this is primarily a "Who dun it" serial killing mystery that attracts the `blood and guts' and thrill seeking crowd, it speaks volumes to so many other sectors of society about so many of life's themes - parenting, marriage, divorce, adolescence, loyalty, teamwork and the list goes on...The question is...when will the movie version be released?It's that good!