Book review: Breakneck, by Erica Spindler

I've not read any previous books by this author, but the story line here seems to stand on its own. The plotline moves along at a pretty steady pace, with lots of emotional drama as detective MC Riggio withholds information from her partner and generally makes a mess of things. Unfortunately, you can figure out who the bad guy is quite a few pages before the characters do.

Make sure you read the reviews at Amazon about this one. I agree with many of them which say that the writing is mediocre, the police procedural aspect of the storyline is very weak, and it's just not that 'thrilling' or suspenseful. I also agree that the writing doesn't draw you in or get you to really care about any of the characters. I can see from the drama that I'm supposed to care about their losses, their griefs, and their messed up lives, but I just don't feel any attachment to them.

In the acknowledgments at the front of the book, Spindler says 'One of the many fun (and challenging) things about writing fiction is wading into unknown territories, then writing convincingly about them.' The areas she mentions as being unknown to her is banking and computers, but (being a computer person myself) I would not rate her writing on these topics as convincing. One fun aspect of the book is that the events are dated January 11, 2009 through January 31, 2009, so it's a neat feeling that connects the events to real life.