Heather’s Bookshelf: The Murder Game
Author: Evelyna Starikova
Released: 10/04/20
Genre: Adult Crime-Thriller
“Riley and Evelyna have graduated from liaisons into actual profilers for the FBI. A few cases under their belt helps out for sure. And they said that Evelyna is a natural talent. Today is the day that she finally gets to take a team under her wing. They call themselves the NDP: National Department of (Criminal) Profilers.”
“The Murder Game” introduces Evelyna MacKinnon. At the start of the story, Evelyna’s a high schooler trapped in a class with a psychopathic teacher. She and her friends, including the new exchange student Lukkas, eventually escape his insanity and go on to live productive lives.
Evelyna’s inspired to attend college where she is reunited with her friend Lukkas. Their relationship is rekindled and soon blossoms resulting in marriage and adoption of three boys. But when Lukkas decides he must return home to hone his hockey skills, he leaves Evelyna and the boys to fend for themselves.
Moving on from her past, Evelyna seeks a career in the FBI and becomes one of their best profilers. She meets a new love interest who also happens to be both a profiler and a hockey player. Everything starts looking on the bright side for Evelyna again, until one day when she gets a threatening message and someone she loves goes missing…
Will Evelyna be able to catch the person out to hurt her and her family before it’s too late?
Trigger Warning: violence, adult language, sexual situations, murder
Overall, I was torn on this tale. This story starts out in a sequence so bizarre, I thought it might be some sort of a dream. I personally am not a fan of this overdone trope, so I was glad to read that it was not. However, the nature of the scene remained the same and certainly set the tone for the rest of the book. Much of the plot is both action-forward and absurd. There are several instances of things happening in the book that would not occur in real life. The author also has a tendency to describe each character’s physical features as soon as you are introduced to them and then to refer to the characters moving forward by those physical features (the red head), which I found quite distracting. Now, if you stop relating the book to reality and read it for an entertainment factor, then I can see the appeal. There are several instances of “wait, what?” and these elements push the pacing of the tale forward. The ancillary characters from the beginning of the book make a return in what could only happen in a story, adding additional emotional components especially in relation to the main character. The ending was like the rest of the book, but did feel resolved while also leaving open the possibility of future tales for Evelyna.
I received a copy of this story in exchange of a fair and honest review.
OVERALL REVIEW:
A crime-thriller that pushes pacing with creative (though sometimes off-the-wall) plot lines. Too many unbelievable moments for me, but I appreciate the ingenuity.
Want to learn more about the author?
Check out my interview with Evelyna Starikova
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Find it for purchase here
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