Alright, I will be the first to say that the idea behind this is intriguing. Some tech nerds start up a murder-for-hire scheme. Not a story I have heard before, definitely one I would like to learn more about.
But this book is not the method I want to use.
First off, I know it's early on and ties could be made later, but that prologue seems insanely out of place. The conceit is a group of men who start killing people for money, and the book opens with the author as a teenager getting threatened and chased by a hippie for cutting him off in traffic. Not really the tone setter I was hoping for. And speaking of tone I am not at all sure what the author is going for here. The book is very verbose to the point of feeling like a fictional whodunit rather than a true-crime narrative. He uses a lot of flowery language and suspiciously specific detail that really robs it of any feeling of authenticity. He has a recall of things that he should have no earthly knowledge of. I get wanting to lend a literary tone to a true-crime book to make it more appealing to readers, but there always has to be a clinical analytical tone as well, or you end up with something that people doubt the veracity of.
Honestly, while the author has a good command of language and narrative, it does feel from this first look as though he just wanted an excuse to write a book he could tie to his own life somehow, and that the focus is more on the story he wants to tell than the story as it happened. I'm sure plenty of people will like it but as a true-crime die-hard, I think I will be skipping it.
But this book is not the method I want to use.
First off, I know it's early on and ties could be made later, but that prologue seems insanely out of place. The conceit is a group of men who start killing people for money, and the book opens with the author as a teenager getting threatened and chased by a hippie for cutting him off in traffic. Not really the tone setter I was hoping for. And speaking of tone I am not at all sure what the author is going for here. The book is very verbose to the point of feeling like a fictional whodunit rather than a true-crime narrative. He uses a lot of flowery language and suspiciously specific detail that really robs it of any feeling of authenticity. He has a recall of things that he should have no earthly knowledge of. I get wanting to lend a literary tone to a true-crime book to make it more appealing to readers, but there always has to be a clinical analytical tone as well, or you end up with something that people doubt the veracity of.
Honestly, while the author has a good command of language and narrative, it does feel from this first look as though he just wanted an excuse to write a book he could tie to his own life somehow, and that the focus is more on the story he wants to tell than the story as it happened. I'm sure plenty of people will like it but as a true-crime die-hard, I think I will be skipping it.