Customer Reviews

The 7th Victim (Karen Vail Series)

5 star:		(43)
4 star:		(42)
3 star:		(25)
2 star:		(19)
1 star:		(20)

 

 

The 7th Victim is a masterpiece! Having read every James Patterson and several Jonathan Kellerman, JD Robb and other spy/murder novels, the 7th Victim ranks up there at the top. Super character development for the lead profiler, Karen. Lots of suspense, turns and twists, and non-stop action --- very difficult to put down.

Jacobson has succeeded in creating an unsettling and suspenseful edge throughout the book --- everything that could go wrong, did go wrong for Karen until it righted itself at the very end. So many family twists that we got to know the whole family intimately by the end, like peeling back an onion, it was done layer by layer - surprise!

I can see the quality attention to detail about profiling, SWAT teams, with the appropriate language and procedures. All genuine and seemed realistic. Very enjoyable and I can see how it could be a great movie!

I also reread The Hunted and enjoyed it again!

I have read Mr Jacobson's earlier books, so I was eager to read this one. 7th Victim is the best to date. The story of Karen Vail, an FBI profiler working to identify and catch a serial killer, is really well researched. It exposes what a profiler does without being unduly technical, so that you can follow the story easily and get a realistic feeling without being bogged down in detail - this is often a very difficult balance and Jacobson pulls it off.

At its heart, though, 7th Victim is a murder mystery / whodunit? If you are like me you are from the first page trying to figure out who did and are always disappointed when you solve it. There are lots of twists here, and I guarantee you will not guess the answers to this complicated plot.

Buy, read, and enjoy. And don't open your doors at night.

It seemed like it took forever to get through this book!
The main story is about the "Dead Eyes" killer, a serial killer who mutilates his/her victims and paints on the wall in their blood. The hero/main character is Karen Vail, a FBI profiler.
Karen is in a custody battle with her ex-husband - this creates situations that don't seem believable. The physical fights between Karen and Deacon, her ex are tiresome. When her son is injured, it's unrealistic how she fits hospital visits into her schedule. Also she is falling in love with a fellow officer, finding out about her past, putting her mother in a nursing home and seeing a lawyer regarding the custody of her son - all this during the investigation of the serial killer. Too much blah, blah when there should be lots of action. When I finally got to the action part, it just didn't draw me in or make me turn the pages.
I won't be reading The 7th Victim again.

I finished this book, though I probably should have given up on it immediately. I have not read any of this author's other novels--nor will I. This book is so overstuffed with coincidences and stale plot devices--SPOILER ALERTS AHEAD--that even the old 'Evil Twin' and the 'split personality disorder' clunkers make convenient appearances.

Also, I did not like the protagonist much. For a crack FBI profiler, she was certainly slow to notice her mom's slide into Alzheimer's and her ex-husband's increasingly abusive behavior toward their son when the boy spent Court-ordered time with his dad. Even after her son appealed to her to help him, she was slow to grasp the severity of the situation. Finally the author put the kid into a coma--clearly to get him out of the heroine's hair so she could solve the case without being burdened with child care. The boy conveniently woke up just as the case was solved--apparently as good as new!

Then there's the antagonistic relationship she deliberately goes out of her way to nurture with a fellow member of the team investigating the 'Dead Eyes" killer. This adversarial relationship exists solely to provide a 'red herring' diversion in the plot.

All in all this book is a mess and not worth your time. It incorporates every soap opera plot device ever known and they do not serve it well.

As other readers have remarked, this book was full of unbelievable co-incidences, tired plot devices, and tepid characters. Riddled with cliches, the novel is overlong and filled with redundant details and minutiae that most of us who read this genre are quite familiar with.

Karen Vail is the only female FBI profiler in the BAU and is working on a case that has been dubbed "Dead Eyes Killer" by the rest of those on the task force. Working with them, she is faced with trying to figure out why there is an increase in the killer's activities but ends up being implicated in the case. As the killing escalates, the task force is slowly but surely trying to find the killer and prevent further murders. The narrative moves forward slowly with lots of background about the nature and function of profiling as part of the investigatory activity of the FBI when faced with a serial killer.

The revelations during the investigation are peripheral as most of the story centers on all the different facets of Karen's life -- an abusive ex husband, a contentious divorce, a custody battle, a son in the hospital, a mother with Alzheimer's -- well is it any wonder that Karen is distracted?! Oh, and of course there's a romance in the midst of all this horror!

Now -- your guess -- does the killer come after Karen? I was disappointed when, yet again, the killer marked the female agent involved in the case. She is to be victim number seven.

As far as I can tell, if you are a fan of the psycho killer, thriller chiller suspense novel -- you've already basically read this one. Borrow, don't buy.

This book sucked! Although it has snappy pacing, lots of interesting details about profiling and the BAU, and well-developed characters, these things can't make up for the plot holes big enough to drive a Mack truck through. Unless you like cliches and unbelievable coincidences I suggest you don't bother to read this drek.

Masterpiece? Page burner? Did we read the same book? I'm as willing as the next guy to suspend belief for the sake of a good read, but not for a storyline this absurd or character development this hackneyed. I actually bought the book based on the Amazon reviews, a mistake I won't make again.

Special Agent Karen Vail is a profiler with the FBI on the hunt for a serial killer. The killer is nicknamed Dead Eyes by the task force searching for him because of the way his victims eyes are stabbed with steak knives. Vail's struggle to remain human when she is exposed to such brutality is only complicated by problems in her personal life: she is in the midst of a nasty divorce from an abusive husband, and struggles as a single mother to a teenage son.

The blurbs on the book's cover and the considerable publicity surrounding focus on the extensive research the author did into the operations of the FBI's profiling unit. This research pays off in this book, as the terminology and processes used makes those aspects of the story ring true. However, some of the plot twists do not. I can't say anything more because I don't want to give away the surprises, but I found the ending a bit too contrived. Also, the chapters focusing on the serial killer's perspective are silly rather than scary and too frequently sprinkled in - after the third chapter it is clear that killer thinks women are *****es and wants to rid them of their eyeballs, yet the reader is reminded of these things in chapter after chapter.

Fortunately Karen Vail and her team of agents and cops are likable and more realistic than the killer. They propel along the entertaining if somewhat implausible story. This book should appeal to fans of Thomas Harris, Stephen White, and others who enjoy stories about the minds of serial killers.

I was excited to read this book based on the amazon reviews, but the writing in this book is terrible! The main character's quips are so cliche and annoying that I couldn't get through the book without feeling like I was watching a really terrible crime drama on cable. I am the type of person that always gives a book a chance, but this time I just couldn't keep reading.

in order to "enjoy" this ebook. The events were too extreme--even for a slasher type of book like this.
Or maybe it's just me...
I didn't become invested in any of the characters. I had no real sense of their feelings/emotions, etc. except on the surface.
I like to "know" my characters and they all remained "strangers" to me.