Review: Bloodline

 

When you're looking at this book you're just gonna go like "eh, is this gonna impress me or is it gonna bore the fuck out of me?" Either way you go, you're abso-freaking-lutely right. And no, before you think, I am not high when I was writing this.

Bloodline by Mark Billingham follows the story of Tom Thorne, a detective who's given to investigate the case of a woman who had an X ray piece in her hand. When similar bodies are found and the X rays are pieced, Thorne finds out that the murdered people are the children of the victims of Raymond Garvey, a killer who'd been responsible for the death of seven women earlier. Four people already dead, and three people still on the list to die, will Thorne be able to solve the case before he's too late?

QUICK THOUGHTS AND REVIEW: 3.5/5, it looked really questionable to me and there were a lot of  places where it fell flat.

PROS:

1. Tension: If I am gonna talk about tension, it's off the charts. I know I shouldn't have started the critique with just this, but this is one of the standout parts of this book. The IMMENSE tension surrounding it. It's so tight like a rubber band that has been stretched to the extreme limit that you feel like any moment that rubber band might snap. But it doesn't. In fact it is stretched even more, and I didn't think that it was humanly possible.

2. Setting: Highly interesting. I assume it was in London? It seemed like London because of the setting, neither goodreads nor the synopsis at the back of the book mentions anything more about it. Though there are mentions of places in England. DESPITE the anonymity or my dumbassery of not being able to discover the place. [Yes, despite the snark and the sarcasm, this blogger is a dumbass]

3. The journals and the talks between Raymond Garvey and Antony Garvey, they were adding to the mystery. And also to a frustration when you know who the killer is and you know why they're doing it but the police isn't doing jackshit about it. Sometimes I personally felt like smacking the shit out of these people for that.

CONS:

1. Characterization: One dimensional and flat. Little to none character development, or no hints to show that there might be more to them. I know most detective stories usually don't have a character development, but they make the stories interesting enough for the reader to know more about it. I think only Louise and Hendricks showed some development, otherwise none.

2. Sometimes when I was reading the book, I was like, seriously, what in the world is happening. Because a. It took me a very long while to recognize where I was reading DESPITE having put a bookmark because I had no goddamn memory of reading it. And b. TOO MUCH narration. I mean, the book could have skipped some parts of description and it would have worked just as fine.

OVERALL, AN OKAY READ. It did seem interesting in the last 20 pages or so though.