annieb123
Written on Jan 31, 2021
Glimpse, The Angel Shot is a book in the Deadly Glimpses series by Stephen B. King. Released in this edition 11th Nov 2020, it's 374 pages and available in paperback and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links throughout. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats.
This is a difficult to classify hybrid of psychological thriller, police procedural, with a touch of psychological magical realism(?). It's not so much a "whodunnit", since that's heavily foreshadowed throughout as a study in psychosis and the mind of a murderer.
Although it's the fourth book in the series, it works well enough as a standalone. The writing was highly uneven to me. I found myself being yanked out of my suspension of disbelief at several points by oddly clunky oversimplified dialogue or strangely overwrought prose. The plotting was also uneven and raced in some places skipping over implied scenes whilst dragging in between. Overall, though, it's a readable and fairly engaging psychological thriller with well rendered characters and a well-thought out plot. I found several of the characters personally repellent and I was annoyed at their intermittent unprofessional and immature conduct throughout much of the read. I did appreciate that the author manages to instill a sense of menace and psychological stress into the scenes without resorting to graphic gore and violence. The themes of abduction, rape, victim drugging (rohypnol), and murder might be triggering for some readers.
Three and a half stars. I would recommend it for fans of psychological thrillers, murder procedurals, and the like.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.