Hall of Fame Review: Evil Games by Angela Marsons

Thursday 28 May 2015
Title: Evil Games (Kim Stone, #2)
Author: Angela Marsons
Publisher: Bookouture
Publication Date: 29th May 2015
Pages: 349
Source: Review Copy
Rating: 5/5
Purchase: Amazon
The greater the Evil, the more deadly the game…

When a rapist is found mutilated in a brutal attack, Detective Kim Stone and her team are called in to bring a swift resolution. But, as more vengeful killings come to light, it soon becomes clear that there is someone far more sinister at work.

With the investigation quickly gathering momentum, Kim soon finds herself exposed to great danger and in the sights of a lethal individual undertaking their own twisted experiment.

Up against a sociopath who seems to know her every weakness, for Detective Stone,each move she makes could be deadly. As the body count starts to mount, Kim will have to dig deeper than ever before to stop the killing. And this time – it’s personal.

How often does an author come from nowhere with one of the best crime novels of the year, and then go and release an even better one in the same year, after just a few months?! Not often is the answer to that question. I'm a little bit speechless to be honest at just how incredible this book was. The people at Bookouture must be smiling smugly to themselves at having signed up one of the best new crime authors of 2015, maybe even the decade.

I love Kim Stone. She is without a doubt one of the best female detectives I think I have ever read about in crime fiction, and I love how we continue to learn more about her with each book that we read. She is a complicated character with a multitude of issues, but a fierce determination to do her job no matter what the cost, and no matter what the victims of crime may have done as we find out in Evil Games when she is determined to apprehend the killer of a rapist. Plus, she takes no messing from anybody. If she overhears somebody bitching about her, that person is about to feel an inch tall.

In terms of story in Evil Games I don't even want to do the boring obligatory blurb, you can read it above but Angela Marsons has created one of the most evil, intriguing and absolutely addictive to read about sociopaths ever. Forget any serial killer or madman you have read about in the past, they are often grossly exaggerated, the character created here by Angela is as believable as any person you might pass on the street, that friendly, smiling neighbour who couldn't possibly be anything more than the perfect, beautiful woman that appears on the surface. Yes, our sociopath is a woman and she's heading straight for the cross hairs of Kim Stone. This is a character that will instill genuine fear into those who read about her, but believe me when I say you will not be able to stop reading. It is as frightening as it is compelling. Without wanting to go into too much detail, it's quite scary how easy it was to imagine something like this happening in real life. SAY NO MORE.

I've said it before but for me the greatest success of a book lies in that killer showdown, that showdown that an author spends a whole book leading up to. I'm saying nothing other than this book does not disappoint in the slightest, delivering on all the marketing promises that for other books are just sales techniques. I can't remember the last time I was so excited to read a book's conclusion to see how everything would end. And then when it did end I looked around the room stunned, and then was gutted that I'd reached the end of the book. Also, not going to lie, my eyes stung reading parts of this book. I now feel like I know Kim Stone, so much so that I think I care about a fictional character, and this is quite an emotional book in terms of what happens to Kim and the changes we see in her as the story progresses.

Angela Marsons is clearly an author that researches what she writes about, and this is crime fiction with some truly realistic psychological elements to it. Evil Games is a book that I did not want to end and right now, if someone held a gun to my head and told me I could only pick one fictional detective to read about for the rest of my life, I'm pretty sure you can guess what my answer would be! Seriously, people talk about books being unmissable, 'must reads', well Evil Games is a must read book, and probably one of the best I will read this year. I finished my review of Silent Scream saying that Angela Marsons had her work cut out bettering that book, well I think it's now other crime authors who have their work cut out bettering these two phenomenal crime fiction books. Think I'm exaggerating? I'm really, really not...

Aaaaaaaand breathe. Go and buy it!

5/5

2 comments:

  1. Shaun, thank you so much for this fantastic review. I am so pleased you enjoyed it and I am thrilled you get Kim Stone so well. This has made my day X

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for this nice article. Keep it up. :)

    ReplyDelete

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