Reviews tagging 'Animal death'

Thirteen by Steve Cavanagh

10 reviews

sharkfan's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Very dark and very graphic deaths.  This is something I usually don’t like, and didn’t here either - but, I couldn’t put this down.  I had to know what happened next.   I’ll give the author credit, it’s a great story.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Torture, Violence, Blood, Police brutality, Murder, Gaslighting, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Addiction, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Rape, Sexual violence, Suicide, Kidnapping, Death of parent, Outing, and Alcohol

Minor: Homophobia, Self harm, Cannibalism, Stalking, Car accident, Abandonment, and War

kirstencholewa's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Well-written, intense legal thriller

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Blood, Police brutality, Car accident, Murder, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Self harm, and Fire/Fire injury

gracefulraven's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cursing, Death, Gun violence, Mental illness, Violence, Blood, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Moderate: Alcoholism and Alcohol

Minor: Animal cruelty, Animal death, and Rape

meeklovestoread's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

I randomly saw this book being recommended on a bookstagram reel. The poster said this was the type of book where you could clearly visualize everything. And the synopsis sounded so cool and I'm such a sucker for unique concepts especially when it comes to thriller novels so I picked it up. 

Note this book is told in dual POV, the killer, and Eddie Flynn. When I first saw this book, I thought it was a standalone, but I later found that it was the 4th book in a series but the original poster noted that they read this as a standalone so I proceeded to do the same. And after reading this book, I agree you could read this as a standalone and be fine.

As for the story, honestly, I'm such a sucker for court cases in shows. Law & Order SVU is one of my favorite shows, so it was nice to see all that in book form and so much more. This book definitely made me want to get more into legal thrillers.

This book was crazy! From start to finish a lot of wacky things were happening! And this being my first Eddie Flynn novel, it was really enjoyable to get a look into his character. Him being an ex-con turned lawyer is such a cool form of characterization. As well as gaining more facets about him such as his history with drinking, marital issues, and his push and pull towards crazy legal situation. As well as his relationship with Harry. For this being the fourth book in a series, I feel like the author handled the main character's archetype very well. I really enoyed how this book was written and by the end, I found myself missing Eddie. We really went through a lot with him in this book. 

Kane was something else. Now I'm not aware of the validity of all of Kane's mannerisms and psychosis but the way the author wrote it made it very believable. Kane was such a methodical and innately nefarious individual. It was very intriguing to be in his head and read about him and his backstory.

The plot did EAT in this book! The concept was so cool, it would've made a great plot for a show or movie. Of course, the court part of this book doesn't really start till you're halfway through, but the first half was still intriguing, but it was more build-up than anything else which kinda bored me a little bit (but that's on me), but one the court part did come they DELIVERED. It was so fun to read and the original poster was so right, when reading you can most definitely visualize everything that's going on. Again, I really commend the author for bringing this to life and being so descriptive.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. I felt like the ending was a bit lackluster considering the type of individual Kane was made out to be.

Him dying by like five gunshots felt so anticlimactic. I wish Kane and Eddie interacted more during that final scene and it was more of a slow burn. And I hate that we didn't get Kane's final thoughts as he was dying that would've been so great to be in his head and see how he was defeated.

The twists in these books are good too. Steve seems like a very meticulous writer, making sure that most if not every dot is left uncrossed.

I predicted Holten being involved as the story was coming along, but I had no idea of his full involvement. I really felt like the twists tied the story together well.

After reading this book, and getting a taste of Steve's writing, I just might read more from this and might dive into this series at one point. What a fun and entertaining read!

Note: I highly recommend the audiobook for this one! The narrator did a great job differentiating the voices.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Murder

Moderate: Alcoholism, Body horror, Gun violence, Violence, Blood, Police brutality, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Cursing, Mental illness, Stalking, Death of parent, and Outing

hellokatya's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

this book really took me by surprise. the twists and turns fully got me - i did not expect any of them. really good plot, not great execution. the writing style bored me at points and felt like a chore to get through. also far too many characters to keep track of, constantly had to refer back to character log to know who was being spoken of. 
overall very good book. would recommend 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Death, Rape, Sexual assault, Torture, Violence, Stalking, Murder, and Alcohol

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Bullying, Gun violence, Misogyny, Blood, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Mental illness, Vomit, and Car accident

c_dmckinney's review

challenging dark mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

I had absolutely no idea this book was part of a series, let alone the fourth in. The writing was impeccable and it didn't feel like I was missing any back story let alone 3 entire previous books. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gun violence, Violence, Police brutality, Stalking, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Outing, Gaslighting, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Addiction, Animal death, Child death, Homophobia, Infidelity, Rape, Sexual assault, and Sexual violence

theinkwyrm's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Well I enjoyed that more than I'd anticipated. I feel like the dual perspectives kept the pacing fast and compelling and the POVs were almost equally matched as far as enjoyment. While I didn't enjoy Flynn's POV quite as much as Kane's, the courtroom drama elements helped even that up. I also appreciated that while Flynn is clearly a modern day version of the hardboiled detective, he lacks for the most part (although not completely) the misogyny that is generally typical of that trope. The only thing that you really have to suspend your disbelief for (or at least I did) was that Kane is not only a psycopathic and sociopathic serial killer but that he also has a rare disorder that means he can't feel pain (which is mentioned pretty early on), which is honestly just kind of overkill if you ask me. But I still enjoyed his POV enough that it didn't bother me enough to want to stop reading. Overall, a pretty solid thriller that you can enjoy without having read the first few books in the series.  

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Blood, and Murder

Moderate: Alcoholism and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Animal death

kristinebennett's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Diverse cast of characters? No

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Police brutality and Murder

Minor: Animal death, Rape, Death of parent, and Outing

bookthief's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

This book follows a clever serial killer in the act of murder and in trial. There’s a plot twist of the killer being on the jury, but will the infamous Eddie Flynn find him before it’s too late. This book is intense and graphical.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Physical abuse, Self harm, Violence, Blood, Death of parent, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

astudyinliterature's review against another edition

adventurous dark tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This book was recommended to me by a friend and what an amazing recommendation it was! 
The twists and turns in this book keep you on the edge of your seat until the very last page! I thought I knew where it was going and it completely did a 180 in the most interesting way! 
I couldn’t stop my face from being so expressive while reading it, people were probably looking at me a bit strangely in the cafe but I don’t mind! 
This is now a firm favourite, must read more!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Violence

Minor: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Rape, and Sexual harassment

The tags make it sound a bit scary but if you like thrillers, you’ll love this!