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kbranfield's review against another edition
4.0
The first installment in the DI David Vogel series, Deadly Dance by Hilary Bonner is a dark yet compelling police procedural.
DI David Vogel is affected more than usual when he is assigned to investigate the death of fourteen year old Melanie Cooke since he has a daughter who is the same age as the victim. He does not let this affect his investigation but he is definitely determined to bring her killer to justice. Like many murder inquiries, he and his team, DC Dawn Saslow and DS John Willis, begin with the victim's family. Although stepfather Jim Fisher has an alibi, troubling information almost immediately comes to light. Melanie's father, Terry Cooke, is incredibly distraught at the news but he co-operates fully with the investigation. However, DC Willis zeroes in on Terry as a suspect right from the beginning. Vogel is not convinced Terry murdered his daughter, but will the evidence prove Willis is on the right track?
Interspersed with David's investigations are chapters written from three very different individuals. Saul desperately wants to meet and marry and turns to an online marriage website to find a bride, but will he find a woman to share his life with? Leo is gay but he is so deeply closeted he turns to hook-ups to satisfy his desires but will he change his mind after he becomes infatuated with a one-night stand? Al is a pedophile with voyeuristic tendencies but will he continue to resist acting on his fantasies? While these three men initially do not seem to have any connection to Melanie's murder, will this change once Vogel delves deeper into the investigation?
Deadly Dance is an intriguing but rather slow-paced mystery. The investigation into Melanie's murder is a straight-forward murder inquiry and Vogel is a by the book detective inspector who has keen instincts and a sharp intellect. The chapters written from Saul, Al and Leo's perspectives are somewhat explicit but Al's exploits are particularly difficult to read. These chapters are not intended to be titillating and none of their scenes are gratuitous but the subject matter is not for the faint of heart. Readers will most immediately guess the identity of Melanie's killer, but Hilary Bonner still brings the novel to a jaw-dropping, action packed conclusion. The DI David Vogel series is off to an outstanding beginning with this first clever installment.
DI David Vogel is affected more than usual when he is assigned to investigate the death of fourteen year old Melanie Cooke since he has a daughter who is the same age as the victim. He does not let this affect his investigation but he is definitely determined to bring her killer to justice. Like many murder inquiries, he and his team, DC Dawn Saslow and DS John Willis, begin with the victim's family. Although stepfather Jim Fisher has an alibi, troubling information almost immediately comes to light. Melanie's father, Terry Cooke, is incredibly distraught at the news but he co-operates fully with the investigation. However, DC Willis zeroes in on Terry as a suspect right from the beginning. Vogel is not convinced Terry murdered his daughter, but will the evidence prove Willis is on the right track?
Interspersed with David's investigations are chapters written from three very different individuals. Saul desperately wants to meet and marry and turns to an online marriage website to find a bride, but will he find a woman to share his life with? Leo is gay but he is so deeply closeted he turns to hook-ups to satisfy his desires but will he change his mind after he becomes infatuated with a one-night stand? Al is a pedophile with voyeuristic tendencies but will he continue to resist acting on his fantasies? While these three men initially do not seem to have any connection to Melanie's murder, will this change once Vogel delves deeper into the investigation?
Deadly Dance is an intriguing but rather slow-paced mystery. The investigation into Melanie's murder is a straight-forward murder inquiry and Vogel is a by the book detective inspector who has keen instincts and a sharp intellect. The chapters written from Saul, Al and Leo's perspectives are somewhat explicit but Al's exploits are particularly difficult to read. These chapters are not intended to be titillating and none of their scenes are gratuitous but the subject matter is not for the faint of heart. Readers will most immediately guess the identity of Melanie's killer, but Hilary Bonner still brings the novel to a jaw-dropping, action packed conclusion. The DI David Vogel series is off to an outstanding beginning with this first clever installment.
kirkw1972's review against another edition
3.0
I have mixed feelings from this first book in the Vogel series. I really enjoyed Vogel as a character. He’s quite stoic and unusual for a police detective doesn’t have any addictions or horrid relationships. Very unique! I also liked his sub plot. He’s a secular Jew and has denounced all religion but has to re-assess his entire thinking after getting some shocking news (spoiler free). I’m not religious but religion interests me and I would pick up book 2 just to see where he goes with this.
The secondary police characters & his wife almost don’t exist. I think a lot more could have been done with them. What we do get is 3 extra voices. All link to the murder but Vogel doesn’t know how. The voices are quite similar for 3 men that have very different issues. We have the paedophile, the gay man going to extreme lengths to keep his sexuality separate from his life and the impotent man trying to find a wife online. They should sound wildly different but don’t. I think the author tries to drop clues as she goes along as to who the killer is but they’re more anvils and it becomes obvious very quickly to everyone but the police
Back to positives. It is a fast read. I sat up until 1.30am to finish it and see when Vogel would click as to who the bad guy was. The reasoning behind the murderer has been done a lot but a subject I personally find interesting (again no spoilers). As mentioned above I’m intrigued where the Jewish/faith story will go. Overall I think a thumb firmly in the middle for this one
The secondary police characters & his wife almost don’t exist. I think a lot more could have been done with them. What we do get is 3 extra voices. All link to the murder but Vogel doesn’t know how. The voices are quite similar for 3 men that have very different issues. We have the paedophile, the gay man going to extreme lengths to keep his sexuality separate from his life and the impotent man trying to find a wife online. They should sound wildly different but don’t. I think the author tries to drop clues as she goes along as to who the killer is but they’re more anvils and it becomes obvious very quickly to everyone but the police
Back to positives. It is a fast read. I sat up until 1.30am to finish it and see when Vogel would click as to who the bad guy was. The reasoning behind the murderer has been done a lot but a subject I personally find interesting (again no spoilers). As mentioned above I’m intrigued where the Jewish/faith story will go. Overall I think a thumb firmly in the middle for this one
cj_mo_2222's review against another edition
5.0
A fourteen-year-old girl tells her mother she's going to visit a school friend, but is found dead in Bristol, England's red light district. Detective Inspector David Vogel thinks the young girl had to be meeting someone else and is determined to find the truth.
The information provided about this book says it's the first of a new series and although the book just came out, I am already anticipating the next book! From the description, it sounds like a typical police procedural, which I enjoy. However, the book has a complexity and chilling aspect which elevates the book into the thriller category. Interspersed with third person narration of the murder investigation are chapters told in the first person whose possible connection to the case is unknown when the story begins.
The story becomes more and more suspenseful as the book progresses. The plot is very complex and I was truly shocked by more than one huge twist as the story concluded. I loved this book and highly recommend it for suspense lovers, as well as fans of Peter Robinson.
I received this book from NetGalley, through the courtesy of Severn House. The book was provided to me in exchange for an honest review.
The information provided about this book says it's the first of a new series and although the book just came out, I am already anticipating the next book! From the description, it sounds like a typical police procedural, which I enjoy. However, the book has a complexity and chilling aspect which elevates the book into the thriller category. Interspersed with third person narration of the murder investigation are chapters told in the first person whose possible connection to the case is unknown when the story begins.
The story becomes more and more suspenseful as the book progresses. The plot is very complex and I was truly shocked by more than one huge twist as the story concluded. I loved this book and highly recommend it for suspense lovers, as well as fans of Peter Robinson.
I received this book from NetGalley, through the courtesy of Severn House. The book was provided to me in exchange for an honest review.
mandylovestoread's review against another edition
4.0
This book really surprised me. The story of David Vogel and his team investigating the murder of a 14 year old girl in Bristol. The story is told from multiple points of view. It is hard to write a review without giving things away! A very fast paced read that leaves you wanting more.
Thanks to Netgalley and Severn House for a copy of this book to read and review this book. Highly recommend this book
Thanks to Netgalley and Severn House for a copy of this book to read and review this book. Highly recommend this book
museoffire's review against another edition
2.0
I'm going to have to put the majority of this review under a spoiler tag because, in theory, in talking about my major issue with this book I've got to spoil "the big reveal." My issue is that the big reveal is neither big nor a reveal given that I worked it out based entirely on the blurb on the jacket. This doesn't make me Sherlock Holmes I assure you.
Here's the deal. Detective Inspector David Vogel and his team are called to the scene of a tragic murder. A fourteen year old girl has been found strangled in the street. She'd lied to her parents about a study date with a girlfriend and was clearly dressed up to meet someone, the question is who?
Author Hilary Bonner does a pretty good job with her crime solving team. Vogel is an interesting guy, solid, happy marriage which makes a nice change from the usual tortured investigative genius who sacrifices everything including those he loves for the sake of solving the crime, he's got a daughter very close in age to the victim and a good relationship with his team. He's a good person and good at his job and he's doing it for the right reasons and as far as setting him up as a long term protagonist of a series Bonner does a solid job. I like the guy.
Unfortunately that's about all I can say for this book. The lead detective seems like a nice person. Because at the same time as we are meeting Vogel and his crack team who honestly all kind of blended together for me since he's the only one who gets developed Bonner is beating a really, really dead horse of a murder mystery trope when it comes to the actual crime being investigated.
So here's what the book jacket has to say about who the murderer might be.
Detective Inspector David Vogel is led towards three very different principal protagonists, each of whom grows increasingly chilling. But are they what they seem? And is any one of them capable of murder?
We meet the first of these "very different" characters on page nine. His name is Saul. He's followed shortly by Leo and then Al. None of these men has a last name, a family, friends, or any kind of defining characteristic physical or personality wise beyond being shady as hell guys who are all looking for their own versions of "love/sex" and lying about their identities to their prospective partners/victims. They also all sound EXACTLY the same. They also aren't "introduced" to Vogel. They exist in a narrative vacuum of individual subplots that are all occurring around the primary murder investigation before awkwardly converging at the end. It takes Vogel the ENTIRE book to work out that they are, as I figured from page nine, the same person because of everyone's favorite murder mystery chestnut....say it with me now....Dissociative Identity Disorder.
This isn't the worst murder mystery/thriller plot device in the world, not if its handled right. Hell, M. Knight Shyamalan and James McAvoy knocked it out of the damn park in this years "Split," [b:Fight Club|5759|Fight Club|Chuck Palahniuk|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1357128997s/5759.jpg|68729] certainly makes it work, and lest we forget [b:Psycho|156427|Psycho|Robert Bloch|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1393286878s/156427.jpg|3279468]? So its possible to not just make it work but to make it absolutely outstanding.
Unfortunately Bonner's DID character is neither outstanding nor accurately portrayed. I don't know a ton about DID but I do know that people who suffer from it didn't catch it like a cold or inherit it genetically as Bonner's character appears to have. My understanding is that its basically a defense mechanism that kicks in as a result of extreme childhood trauma usually of a sexual nature. The child's personality, unable to cope with what is happening, basically splinters off into another or other personalities that compartmentalize whats happening in a way that allows the child to mentally survive.
It doesn't always manifest right away but when it does these people are not totally stable members of society tricking everyone with a carefully executed bait and switch as their personalities seamlessly check in and out. They're a barely contained mess, they black out, are severely depressed, they often self harm and most of them have attempted suicide at least once and they almost all experience various symptoms of severe PTSD from whatever trauma they've experienced.
In other words you'd know something was wrong with someone dealing with this. You might not know it was DID but they'd be projecting some pretty serious symptoms of mental instability.
I learned all that from reading a couple of memoirs of people with DID and just now a very quick glance at "Psychology Today" and Wikipedia. Things Bonner clearly did not do.
Instead she gives us a character who appears to have been born with DID and is also a fully formed psychopath and self loathing homosexual who not only successfully fooled everyone in his life all the way up to adulthood but also managed to pass all the law enforcement psychological testing with flying colors because he's a member of Vogel's investigation squad!
We also spend no time with this guy when he's not being one of his other "personalities." There's a throw away mention of a possible murder in his past that's only mentioned on like the second to last page but the trauma in his life appears to be "being gay" because all his personalities deal with is his sexual issues. One of them (the one that killed the girl) is a pedophile (but not really because...gay!), one is a self loathing gay guy, and one is a guy who wants a "family" with a woman and tries internet dating and mail order brides (but can't get it up because...gay!).
So in addition to being dead boring Bonner's take on DID is also weirdly awful and homophobic since she seems to be implying that being gay is either a disorder or so traumatic and awful that you can get DID from repressing it or just being one? Its also not at all accurate since people with DID DO experience distinct sexual orientations just as if they WERE different people. They also have unique histories and personality traits. Bonner's murderer is literally the exact same guy in every way except they deal with being gay differently.
I kind of feel like if we'd just spent some time with the murderer when he wasn't being someone else and learned just a bit about what HIS life was like, where he came from, who he was when he wasn't in these altered states it would have gone a long way toward ramping up the tension. As it is he's the typical "wait who's that guy again?" murderer who I kind of remembered but not really who gets a "this is what he was REALLY like" reveal at the end when his ex wife conveniently shows up to validate the DID diagnosis. Instead everyone keeps remarking on how they "never really knew him" because he was very close mouthed about his home life etc. Like that's how he kept all of this hidden, by just not talking about his life outside the office. Rigghhht.
So sloppy as hell research and a seriously dead boring story combine to overpower relatively okay writing for a perfect storm of "eh."
Here's the deal. Detective Inspector David Vogel and his team are called to the scene of a tragic murder. A fourteen year old girl has been found strangled in the street. She'd lied to her parents about a study date with a girlfriend and was clearly dressed up to meet someone, the question is who?
Author Hilary Bonner does a pretty good job with her crime solving team. Vogel is an interesting guy, solid, happy marriage which makes a nice change from the usual tortured investigative genius who sacrifices everything including those he loves for the sake of solving the crime, he's got a daughter very close in age to the victim and a good relationship with his team. He's a good person and good at his job and he's doing it for the right reasons and as far as setting him up as a long term protagonist of a series Bonner does a solid job. I like the guy.
Unfortunately that's about all I can say for this book. The lead detective seems like a nice person. Because at the same time as we are meeting Vogel and his crack team who honestly all kind of blended together for me since he's the only one who gets developed Bonner is beating a really, really dead horse of a murder mystery trope when it comes to the actual crime being investigated.
So here's what the book jacket has to say about who the murderer might be.
We meet the first of these "very different" characters on page nine. His name is Saul. He's followed shortly by Leo and then Al. None of these men has a last name, a family, friends, or any kind of defining characteristic physical or personality wise beyond being shady as hell guys who are all looking for their own versions of "love/sex" and lying about their identities to their prospective partners/victims. They also all sound EXACTLY the same. They also aren't "introduced" to Vogel. They exist in a narrative vacuum of individual subplots that are all occurring around the primary murder investigation before awkwardly converging at the end. It takes Vogel the ENTIRE book to work out that they are, as I figured from page nine, the same person because of everyone's favorite murder mystery chestnut....say it with me now....Dissociative Identity Disorder.
This isn't the worst murder mystery/thriller plot device in the world, not if its handled right. Hell, M. Knight Shyamalan and James McAvoy knocked it out of the damn park in this years "Split," [b:Fight Club|5759|Fight Club|Chuck Palahniuk|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1357128997s/5759.jpg|68729] certainly makes it work, and lest we forget [b:Psycho|156427|Psycho|Robert Bloch|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1393286878s/156427.jpg|3279468]? So its possible to not just make it work but to make it absolutely outstanding.
Unfortunately Bonner's DID character is neither outstanding nor accurately portrayed. I don't know a ton about DID but I do know that people who suffer from it didn't catch it like a cold or inherit it genetically as Bonner's character appears to have. My understanding is that its basically a defense mechanism that kicks in as a result of extreme childhood trauma usually of a sexual nature. The child's personality, unable to cope with what is happening, basically splinters off into another or other personalities that compartmentalize whats happening in a way that allows the child to mentally survive.
It doesn't always manifest right away but when it does these people are not totally stable members of society tricking everyone with a carefully executed bait and switch as their personalities seamlessly check in and out. They're a barely contained mess, they black out, are severely depressed, they often self harm and most of them have attempted suicide at least once and they almost all experience various symptoms of severe PTSD from whatever trauma they've experienced.
In other words you'd know something was wrong with someone dealing with this. You might not know it was DID but they'd be projecting some pretty serious symptoms of mental instability.
I learned all that from reading a couple of memoirs of people with DID and just now a very quick glance at "Psychology Today" and Wikipedia. Things Bonner clearly did not do.
Instead she gives us a character who appears to have been born with DID and is also a fully formed psychopath and self loathing homosexual who not only successfully fooled everyone in his life all the way up to adulthood but also managed to pass all the law enforcement psychological testing with flying colors because he's a member of Vogel's investigation squad!
We also spend no time with this guy when he's not being one of his other "personalities." There's a throw away mention of a possible murder in his past that's only mentioned on like the second to last page but the trauma in his life appears to be "being gay" because all his personalities deal with is his sexual issues. One of them (the one that killed the girl) is a pedophile (but not really because...gay!), one is a self loathing gay guy, and one is a guy who wants a "family" with a woman and tries internet dating and mail order brides (but can't get it up because...gay!).
So in addition to being dead boring Bonner's take on DID is also weirdly awful and homophobic since she seems to be implying that being gay is either a disorder or so traumatic and awful that you can get DID from repressing it or just being one? Its also not at all accurate since people with DID DO experience distinct sexual orientations just as if they WERE different people. They also have unique histories and personality traits. Bonner's murderer is literally the exact same guy in every way except they deal with being gay differently.
I kind of feel like if we'd just spent some time with the murderer when he wasn't being someone else and learned just a bit about what HIS life was like, where he came from, who he was when he wasn't in these altered states it would have gone a long way toward ramping up the tension. As it is he's the typical "wait who's that guy again?" murderer who I kind of remembered but not really who gets a "this is what he was REALLY like" reveal at the end when his ex wife conveniently shows up to validate the DID diagnosis. Instead everyone keeps remarking on how they "never really knew him" because he was very close mouthed about his home life etc. Like that's how he kept all of this hidden, by just not talking about his life outside the office. Rigghhht.
So sloppy as hell research and a seriously dead boring story combine to overpower relatively okay writing for a perfect storm of "eh."
zoer03's review against another edition
1.0
Boring and unbelievable and just horrible detectives. I don’t like Vogel and just found the whole mystery boring. Also random stories of other people and it felt off and odd. Nope not convinced. Thank god I am warned off this authors work.
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