January 23, 2017

Gritty crime series




I posted this pic yesterday morning (Sunday in AUS), and even now I'm still not sure exactly how I feel about Buried Strangers.  It is full of tropes/themes that work great on the screen: corruption at the highest levels as well as the grass roots of the police force, forensic facilities that seem to be 30 years behind cutting edge technology used elsewhere, multiple POVs that you can follow, interesting - if horrific - crime to solve, potential romance between colleagues, numerous dodgy characters, and a central character like Chief Inspector Mario Silva that the whole shebang could revolve around.

However, in book form it just seemed to fall flat for me.  Don't get me wrong, Buried Strangers was well written with interesting characters, but killing children to steal organs for the black market? ... so not me.  Would I want to read any further books in this series?  I really don't know.  I've looked into it, and it seems that each centers on a pretty gruesome topic

"The whole collection is known as "The Chief Inspector Mario Silva Investigations". The books cover a vast array of subjects, including underage prostitution, organ theft, snuff videos, and much more." *

and I think that says it all!  I'd have to think really hard about it before I'd commit to another one as these topics sound truly disturbing to me.  I don't want to read about child prostitution or snuff videos.  I don't know who would read something like that for fun.  But, different strokes for different folks, right?

So those were my thoughts on Buried Secrets.  I didn't go into characters, plot points, etc., because it is more important that a potential reader is aware of the gritty nature of the books.  If you can't deal with these topics then I don't recommend you read the books as they don't shy away from their subject matter.  However, if a good gritty crime novel set within the seedy side of a corrupt police force seems right up your alley, then congratulations, this just might be for you ;-D

I hope this was in some way helpful.  Let me know if you've read any of the Leighton Gage books, and if you did - what did you think of them?  Would you read more?

Thanks again, and until next time...
 



Citation
* Leighton Gage. (2016, August 30). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 20:41, August 30, 2016