Reviews

The Pawn by Steven James

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parklandmom's review

4.0

4.5 stars. Lots of suspense, but sometimes it felt like too much was going on and it got muddled.

The climax was really good, but the rest wasn’t that thrilling to me. A bit too much depressive detail for my taste, and there was too much information revealed about the killer too early. It took away from the mystery. Not bad though.

jen52's review

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2.0

Other than a couple of editing issues and the fact that it's supposed to be "christian fiction" (which explains a lot), this book was a real treat! The story was interesting and complex. I didn't want to put it down during the second half of the book. However, I won't be reading more of this series.

mo_reads_more's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

3.25

This story started off really slow for me. I was confused for a lot of the time, but it's one of those stories that you have to be confused about most of the time until pieces start connecting. There were just so many pieces that I struggled a bit to follow along. Because of this, I really wanted to know what was happening, which kept me invested in the story, but I wasn't excited enough to keep listening to the book nonstop.

I really liked the subplot of Bowers and his step-daughter Tessa. I think she said it best when she acknowledged that Bowers fell in love with her mother and he didn't necessarily sign up for taking care of a teenager all on his own. While it was obvious Bowers loved and cared for her, he definitely did not have the slightest clue how to relate to and care for a teenager. I enjoyed the development of their relationship and how by the end they both met in the middle to try harder to connect with one another.

I also liked how the story played out like a movie in my head. It had a proper storyline and had every potential to keep me hooked. With it being a book and not a movie, however, some scene descriptions and scenes of the characters just interacting with each other slowed the story down a lot. I think if the pacing had been faster I would have rated this story higher. I appreciated these scenes by themselves, but there were just so many of them and Everytime the story slowed down I got a bit bored. Again, this is just a personal preference as to what keeps me invested in stories.

tbf9002's review

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5.0

I sped through this great book. It's not particularly well-written, and feels a little bit like a weekly radio serial thriller. But it's sooo engrossing that you won't be able to put it down. I read the book in 2 days, (sacrificing a lot of sleep)!

moragscot's review against another edition

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1.0

Almost half way through and I gave up. The writing is clunky, the psychology feels like it's been learned from *name of any popular American cop/forensic drama*. The description of a self-harming teenager's thought process came straight from a Cosmo article. The characters aren't well developed, not even interesting let alone likeable, and the pace is slow as treacle.

"He wanted to wake up from the nightmare, but he was stuck inside it. You can't wake up when you're not asleep. And he wasn't sleeping."

With a bit more focus and much less cliche this could've been a good story.

veronicascottnova's review

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3.0

Interesting, with good characterization. Some intense content (I mean really, it's about a serial killer) but it's good.

amanda_readingnwritinglife's review against another edition

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4.0

This was a great shake-up to the normal police procedural. I mean, mostly it was the same except the key difference is in the way Patrick Bowers solves crimes (or helps with them). He uses geography and a computer program to pinpoint places involved in each act of a crime and helps the detectives/special agents understand more about the killer/unsub. He is an FBI special agent and he's just lost his wife to cancer and is trying to do his best to connect with his teenage stepdaughter. Add in a serial killer and potential terrorist plot and it makes for a great book. I can't wait to read more about this detective in the rest of this series.