A review by svw89
The Untouched Crime by Zijin Chen
1.0
I received a free digital copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
I feel bad for rating this so low, but I have to be honest, and honestly I did not enjoy this at all. It started off so well, I was reading the first couple of pages and I was sure I was going to end up really liking this. Yes, the writing wasn't pretty or descriptive but when reading a crime novel, that doesn't bother me so much as it's the case and the working out who the culprit is and the eventual reveal, that is important and keeps me reading.
The case started off well. A fifth body in two years (or was it three? It changed during the books, at the beginning the first killing was two years ago, a couple of chapters later it was three!) has been found with the exact same evidence as the previous four: jump rope murder weapon near the body complete with fingerprints, a Liqun cigarette in the victim's mouth, and a piece of paper with the words “come and get me”. The serial killer has always managed to avoid being caught.
Then some chapters follow, introducing some more characters who will be involved in the investigation in some way, and all equally boring with little to no character development. At times I really wondered what was the point, especially with Zhu Huiru and Guo Yu, who I just found equally pathetic.
Soon we find out why Zhu Huiru and Guo Yu have been introduced. Zhu Huiru stabs Xu Tianding, a local thug who is determined that she should not tell him 'no' again, killing him at the same time as Guo Yu bashes Xu Tianding on the back of the head. Luo stumbles across them and for some reason, decides to help these two strangers cover up the murder using all his knowledge as an ex-forensic expert or something similar.
What follows is a lot of repetition. Luo going to visit Huiru and Guo Yu at the noodle shop, telling them what they need to say to the police, how they need to act etc. This seems to happen every day and it's the same thing over and over. It got very boring, very quickly.
This book is very dialogue heavy, so if you like a lot of dialogue and not a lot of description, this might work out a little better for you. Unfortunately, I also didn't find the dialogue to be that great. It didn't feel natural and I felt that it was used for great big info dumps and step-by-step guides to everything. The stuff that wasn't dialogue wasn't to my tastes. It tended to be very short sentences. He dragged himself to the bus stop. The bus trip lasted over half an hour. He got off at a stop next to a row of stands selling street food.. I appreciate some things may be lost in translation, but it shouldn't effect it that much, so I can't blame this on the translation (which I'm sure was very good!).
I found it very hard to keep track of who was who at times because of the lack of character development. A lot of the characters were very similar, and those who were slightly different, I really did not care for at all because there was very little to them, and what little there was wasn't enough to make me care about them at all. I need to know more about characters, I like to know their motivations, little things about them that make them human, stuff like that so that I can see if I can work out who the killer is and then either be shocked at the reveal or feel clever that I managed to work it out which partly leads on to my last point...
I worked out who the serial killer really early on, before I was a quarter of the way through, and that took a lot of the excitement out of the book and then I had to try and get myself to care about Huiru, Gou Yu and Luo and the situation they'd got themselves into. And I couldn't. I almost gave up a number of times but I forced myself to carry on and finish. There were a few promising moments late on, but then I found myself being let down again.
I wish I could rate this higher but unfortunately I can't. I hope people get more enjoyment out of it than me. Maybe it's just not for me.
I feel bad for rating this so low, but I have to be honest, and honestly I did not enjoy this at all. It started off so well, I was reading the first couple of pages and I was sure I was going to end up really liking this. Yes, the writing wasn't pretty or descriptive but when reading a crime novel, that doesn't bother me so much as it's the case and the working out who the culprit is and the eventual reveal, that is important and keeps me reading.
The case started off well. A fifth body in two years (or was it three? It changed during the books, at the beginning the first killing was two years ago, a couple of chapters later it was three!) has been found with the exact same evidence as the previous four: jump rope murder weapon near the body complete with fingerprints, a Liqun cigarette in the victim's mouth, and a piece of paper with the words “come and get me”. The serial killer has always managed to avoid being caught.
Then some chapters follow, introducing some more characters who will be involved in the investigation in some way, and all equally boring with little to no character development. At times I really wondered what was the point, especially with Zhu Huiru and Guo Yu, who I just found equally pathetic.
Soon we find out why Zhu Huiru and Guo Yu have been introduced. Zhu Huiru stabs Xu Tianding, a local thug who is determined that she should not tell him 'no' again, killing him at the same time as Guo Yu bashes Xu Tianding on the back of the head. Luo stumbles across them and for some reason, decides to help these two strangers cover up the murder using all his knowledge as an ex-forensic expert or something similar.
What follows is a lot of repetition. Luo going to visit Huiru and Guo Yu at the noodle shop, telling them what they need to say to the police, how they need to act etc. This seems to happen every day and it's the same thing over and over. It got very boring, very quickly.
This book is very dialogue heavy, so if you like a lot of dialogue and not a lot of description, this might work out a little better for you. Unfortunately, I also didn't find the dialogue to be that great. It didn't feel natural and I felt that it was used for great big info dumps and step-by-step guides to everything. The stuff that wasn't dialogue wasn't to my tastes. It tended to be very short sentences. He dragged himself to the bus stop. The bus trip lasted over half an hour. He got off at a stop next to a row of stands selling street food.. I appreciate some things may be lost in translation, but it shouldn't effect it that much, so I can't blame this on the translation (which I'm sure was very good!).
I found it very hard to keep track of who was who at times because of the lack of character development. A lot of the characters were very similar, and those who were slightly different, I really did not care for at all because there was very little to them, and what little there was wasn't enough to make me care about them at all. I need to know more about characters, I like to know their motivations, little things about them that make them human, stuff like that so that I can see if I can work out who the killer is and then either be shocked at the reveal or feel clever that I managed to work it out which partly leads on to my last point...
I worked out who the serial killer really early on, before I was a quarter of the way through, and that took a lot of the excitement out of the book and then I had to try and get myself to care about Huiru, Gou Yu and Luo and the situation they'd got themselves into. And I couldn't. I almost gave up a number of times but I forced myself to carry on and finish. There were a few promising moments late on, but then I found myself being let down again.
I wish I could rate this higher but unfortunately I can't. I hope people get more enjoyment out of it than me. Maybe it's just not for me.