Don't Turn Around

by Caroline Mitchell

[Leah]

I’ve had a really good run of books recently, and when I saw the cover for Caroline Mitchell’s crime/thriller/paranormal hybrid, I thought it looked interesting. Definitely my kind of thing, and while I was initially in to the novel, that soon wore off, which actually made me sad. I just found myself getting bored, and waiting for the action to happen.

The trouble with having a paranormal killer is that it’s not very conducive to being a page turner, because who in the world believes in a paranormal killer? In Jennifer’s world, no one, and it riled me up something chronic that her superiors all thought she was just a crazy person and wanted her to go see her shrink. Yeah, there’s people dying left, right and centre, but tell you officer to go see a shrink. FML.

The novel would have been so much more if it had more pace to it. The Jennifer scenes were achingly slow because no one believed her – and she barely believed herself, so it was just like going around in circles all the time.

The part of the novel I did enjoy (which makes me worry) were all the Frank flashback scenes. Frank was very disturbed, but at least we got some action throughout his few chapters. He was always doing something/planning something etc. That DID get my heart racing a little bit, but the rest of the novel didn’t manage it. I think if you’re going to go down the paranormal route, you should make it so that everyone is on board because if hampered Jennifer’s plot SO MUCH to be held back by everyone and just make it seem like she was crazy.

I wanted so much more from the book and I was so sorry not to enjoy it more. The ending left me confused as to who had committed the copy-cat murders (and I’d love any insight on that – was it really who they said it was?!? Surely not?!?). I’m not sure if I’ll stick around for the next book – I might, just to see more of Jennifer and Will and see if keeps me hooked a bit more, but this one wasn’t really for me, although the Frank chapters were outstanding – and I could have read a whole book of them.