A review by jesikasbookshelf
Cold Grave by Craig Robertson
2.0
I cannot comprehend the amount of fantastic reviews for this book - I think a lot of people must have had the pleasure of reading a different version of this book than I did. This book was overly cliche, riddled with painful similes and forced character 'depth', laced with a terrifying seemingly sexual attraction to brutal crime scenes, was roughly 150 pages too long for its plot and - and I cannot stress this enough - was painful to read.
Tony Winter is the main problem - stop explaining the guy is constantly too warm (as he can deal with the cold as his namesake suggests) and then on the next page have him pacing around trying to get warm. JUST STOP THAT. It was really annoying. Next, stop over explaining cameras to people. We get it, he is a crime scene photographer. 99% of your reading audience in the selfie-obsessed world understands a) how to take a fucking photo and b) that they can't do it very well. Ugh. Then, this guy has a perverse attraction to getting photos of the victims of the crime scenes he visits. Look, I get weird things can fuel a persons career but I really don't think having this guy keep his favourite photos on a wall of favourites and have his 'shutter finger itch for the next shot' did anything other than make him MORE CREEPY than the MURDERER keeping actual mementos of his kills. For God's sake.
Literally all the other characters were cardboard cut outs.
The writing was painful as well - granted this is an editing problem, but I got really sick of having to insert words into sentences for them to make sense. And, no, I'm not talking about those scenes with an accent in them, I'm talking about the bog standard, bad fan fiction-esque overly descriptive paragraphs. There wasn't even a consistent take on swearing - one scene it was 'fuck this, bollocks that, you're a dick' and the next it was 'pain in the bum' as though the editors were worried about bothering readers with the word arse.
This book should have been so much better. The blurb looked amazing, the reviews were great and there are several in the series. A guy at work was reading this book and complaining it was so bad - wanting praise when he came in saying he'd read 'another couple of paragraphs last night' as he was determined to finish it. I laughed, told him it couldn't be that bad. So, when he was done he left it on my desk. The only thing that made me finish this book was not wanting to give my teammate the satisfaction of knowing he had been so right I didn't even finish it. (AGAIN with the weird murder books from my team lending library - I am genuinely worried about them a a group).
I think the only saving grace of this book - the only bit that seems written with any truth or warmth - was the scenes regarding Alan Narey's Alzheimers. His daughter's reopening of his last remaining unsolved case, her heartbreak as he flitted in and out of the present time and her desperation to give him some peace by solving it were the only parts of this novel that seemed to have been written with any real thought.
And, for the love of all that is holy, you DO NOT need to constantly change whether you are referring to someone in the first name or surname in the same conversation in order to try and underline how cool you think your character's surname is. WE GET IT - his name is Winter, like the season, ahahahaha.
Tony Winter is the main problem - stop explaining the guy is constantly too warm (as he can deal with the cold as his namesake suggests) and then on the next page have him pacing around trying to get warm. JUST STOP THAT. It was really annoying. Next, stop over explaining cameras to people. We get it, he is a crime scene photographer. 99% of your reading audience in the selfie-obsessed world understands a) how to take a fucking photo and b) that they can't do it very well. Ugh. Then, this guy has a perverse attraction to getting photos of the victims of the crime scenes he visits. Look, I get weird things can fuel a persons career but I really don't think having this guy keep his favourite photos on a wall of favourites and have his 'shutter finger itch for the next shot' did anything other than make him MORE CREEPY than the MURDERER keeping actual mementos of his kills. For God's sake.
Literally all the other characters were cardboard cut outs.
The writing was painful as well - granted this is an editing problem, but I got really sick of having to insert words into sentences for them to make sense. And, no, I'm not talking about those scenes with an accent in them, I'm talking about the bog standard, bad fan fiction-esque overly descriptive paragraphs. There wasn't even a consistent take on swearing - one scene it was 'fuck this, bollocks that, you're a dick' and the next it was 'pain in the bum' as though the editors were worried about bothering readers with the word arse.
This book should have been so much better. The blurb looked amazing, the reviews were great and there are several in the series. A guy at work was reading this book and complaining it was so bad - wanting praise when he came in saying he'd read 'another couple of paragraphs last night' as he was determined to finish it. I laughed, told him it couldn't be that bad. So, when he was done he left it on my desk. The only thing that made me finish this book was not wanting to give my teammate the satisfaction of knowing he had been so right I didn't even finish it. (AGAIN with the weird murder books from my team lending library - I am genuinely worried about them a a group).
I think the only saving grace of this book - the only bit that seems written with any truth or warmth - was the scenes regarding Alan Narey's Alzheimers. His daughter's reopening of his last remaining unsolved case, her heartbreak as he flitted in and out of the present time and her desperation to give him some peace by solving it were the only parts of this novel that seemed to have been written with any real thought.
And, for the love of all that is holy, you DO NOT need to constantly change whether you are referring to someone in the first name or surname in the same conversation in order to try and underline how cool you think your character's surname is. WE GET IT - his name is Winter, like the season, ahahahaha.