Time for another round of Yvonne’s Shorties! This time around a German thriller that I sadly had to DNF and the first book of a detective thriller series that was okay enough, but didn’t really stand out either.

Title: Anatomy Of A Killer
Author: Romy Hausmann
Translator: Jamie Bulloch
Genre: Mystery, Thriller, Crime
First published: 2022
Publisher: Quercus
Finished reading: April 20th 2024
Pages: 339
DNF at 25% (85 pages)
(Originally written in German: ‘Perfect Day’)

“All of us get the odd scratch and scrape over the course of our life. And not every one is visible on the outside.”

REVIEW

I really didn’t want a second DNF in April, but in the end I just couldn’t bring myself to read more. On paper, Anatomy Of A Killer should have been a perfect fit, because I love a good serial killer thriller. I was intrigued by the premise with its focus on the daughter and her trying to prove her father’s innocence… I fully expected to love this story, but I guess my intuition can’t always be right. I think one of the main roadblocks was the fact that I absolutely despised the writing style. Such a big clash with something so fundamental in a story is almost impossible to overcome, and that is definitely what happened here. I’m not sure if it’s the translation or if the story was ment to be this way, but either way it just wasn’t for me. Both the writing and plot were extremely confusing and jump all over the place, and I particularly hated the little word definitions written by a young Ann. I’m not sure why, but the badly written words just irked me enormously. On top of this, I simply couldn’t stand the main character Ann, which is also a hard thing to look past as we mainly see things through her eyes. The Us chapters from the POV of the killer were at least a little more interesting, but still the writing style somehow just didn’t work for me. I confess that I honestly couldn’t care less about the fact if her dad was guilty or not… All in all Anatomy Of A Killer and me most definitely didn’t get along despite the fact that I usually love serial killer thrillers, and I’m suspecting this author just isn’t for me. Next!

Title: The Next Girl
(Detective Gina Harte #1)
Author: Carla Kovach 
Genre: Mystery, Thriller, Detective
First published: April 2nd 2018
Publisher: Bookouture
Finished reading: April 30th 2024
Pages: 302

“The combination of thunder and seeing the helpless baby had dug up her memories. Memories she’d rather forget.”

REVIEW

I came across this series when I was browsing my kindle for titles to read to help complete my kindle freebies goal, and since I’ve been meaning to try Carla Kovach‘s writing for a while now I decided to give in. The Next Girl is the first book of a detective thriller series, and it starts on a heavy note with a kidnapping case as well as a focus on domestic abuse. It’s not a bad read, but somehow there wasn’t really anything that made this thriller stand out from other books in the genre either. I think this had a lot to do with the main character Gina, who I was unable to warm up to. She seemed too much like your stereotypical flawed detective with a troubled past, and the rest of the cast wasn’t overly developed either. The many references to her past and psychological consequences in the present not only made her seem less competent as a detective, but also started to annoy me considerably. The fact that she was sleeping with her boss didn’t really help either to be honest. The plot itself dragged in parts as well, and as a result it took me longer than expected to read The Next Girl. The case itself had a lot of potential and there were moments that were more suspenseful, but as a whole I felt that something was lacking. And while the final part was more engaging, it couldn’t fully save this story for me. All in all it wasn’t a bad read, but I don’t think I will be continuing with this series… I still have too many other detective thriller series I want to start/continue instead.

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