Confessions of a Murder Suspect (Confessions, #1)

by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro

[Nessa Luna]

Read this review, and many more on my blog October Tune!

Malcolm and Maud Angel are dead, and their four children ánd Maud’s personal assistant are both the only witnesses and suspects. For there was no forced entry, no physical evidence that there was someone else in the house besides the family. As the police tries to solve the murders, Tandoori “Tandy” Angel tries to do some investigating herself. But what she finds out is a lot more than she wanted. She finds out a lot of secrets about her parents, about her siblings, about herself.

I got this audiobook through SYNC, who offer two free audiobooks a week from 15 May to 22 August. I saw Confessions of a Murder Suspect and really liked the cover. So I downloaded it (I mean I’m not Dutch for nothing, I love free stuff!). I started listening to it immediately two days ago, and finished it yesterday.

What I liked:

The narrator of the story is Emma Galvin, who (I just found out when I googled her) is also the narrator for the Divergent books. She has a really nice voice, and I found myself listening to the story without difficulty. She even did some slightly different voices for each of the characters, so I would know who was talking at that moment.

I liked the whole investigation that Tandy had going on, I was intrigued by everything she found out and I wanted to know more. I wanted to know who had killed Malcolm and Maud. Like Tandy, and like everyone else in the story actually, I suspected everyone. The children; Matthew, Harry (who wore ‘Harry Potter styled’ glasses, of course), Tandoori (what the hell kind of name is that though?!) and Hugo. I suspected Maud’s personal assistant Samantha, who had some secrets of her own. I suspected Uncle Peter, Tamara Gee, even some of the neighbours. Because everyone had a motive to kill them.

I didn’t really relate to any of the characters, to be honest. I loved reading about them, about them all having different talents and how they all grieved their parents’ death in their own way. But I did think they were a bit too special. All of them were incredibly talented and amazing; Tandy was super smart, Harry was good at art and piano playing and singing (I think it was), Hugo was very strong for a ten-year-old, and Matthew was a superstar. Yes of course, children of famous people are often quite talented, but it kind of felt like all of their children HAD TO BE TALENTED OR ELSE THEY WOULDN’T BE WORTHY THE ANGEL NAME. Ugh. But other than that, they were likable and I felt really sorry for them at the end of the story (I might have cried a bit actually).

When the truth came out, I wasn’t very surprised, because I had guessed it myself after a while, but I was still kind of surprised especially by the way the kids found out about how their parents died. The story was very well written, because when I guessed what had happened, things happened after that that made me doubt my conclusion.

The writing was very well done, it was as if Tandy was telling you the story, because at some points she just referred to ‘you’ and even called the reader/listener her friend. Which I think is something for Tandy, because I don’t think she has (a lot of) friends. Apart from the reader/listener then.

What I didn’t like:

Sometimes, I found the story going a bit slow. I know that happens with a real police investigation of course, but I just wanted to know more about their deaths, more about the killer(s), more about all that. But luckily, there were a lot of awesome scenes that made up for it.

I also thought Malcolm and Maud were horrible parents. When one of their kids did something wrong, they’d get a punishment called the ‘Big Chop’. Some were kind of innocent (still a bit awful but ok), like the one where Tandy had to spend the night in the closet, not being allowed to sit or lie down, not being allowed to sleep. But there was one very specific one that made me a bit mad. You’ll probably find out which one I mean when you read/hear about it (it’s Hugo’s, just so you know). They also did some things to their kids which will be revealed in this story that made me feel angry. How they could do that to their own children just made me feel very sorry for the kids. Yes, it made them the way they are now, but still, how could you do that to your children?!

I also felt a lot of anger for one of the police men, Capricorn Caputo. He was just such an asshole to everyone throughout the story, deliberately calling Tandy the wrong names (like Tansy, Tammy, Tiger Lily, Tinkerbell, etc); lying to the kids, trying to force a confession out of him. There were several moments where I just wanted to reach into my computer and punch Caputo in the face.

In the end, we found out what had happened to Malcolm and Maud Angel, we found out more about Tandy and her secrets, we found out more about the Angel family, but there are still some questions that I wanted answered. Luckily, Tandy has the same questions near the end of the story, and I hope we’ll find out the answers (or some of the answers) to those questions in the sequel, The Private School Murders.