Customer Reviews

Final Victim

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Final Victim grabs the reader on the first page, by putting us right inside the mind/world of the killer. A great start. Maybe that's why it's such a jolt when we're introduced to the main character (think Bruce Willis) and all action stops as we're given seemingly endless detail about his career in Customs.

This book was an improvement over his first novel, The Plan. The killer was a truly scary guy. The book was most interesting when it dealt with the killer and his motivations. This could have been a 4 or even 5 star book if Cannell had just concentrated on the killer and the investigation. The "chase and capture" scenes were well-done; and there's even a nice little twist at the end of the chase. As always, Cannell knows how to write an action scene.

The biggest problem with this book is that it takes far too much time examining the three main investigators and their interrelationships. The fact is, they're just not very interesting, and there's not a whole lot to examine. One is a 'rogue' Customs Agent - your basic guy who won't play by the rules, etc. One is a woman genius - she's brilliant, she's beautiful, she's lonely/vulnerable, etc. One is a convict released to help with the investigation. The convict turns out to be the most realistic character, since he's pretty much just out for himself.

These fairly two-dimensional characters are given far too much time and attention. At perhaps the lowest point in the book, this female genius attempts to examine her feelings about the convict. Just a painful, poorly-written little interlude that might belong on a soap, but not in the middle of a thriller.

Overall, a decent thriller. The killer is sufficiently interesting to keep up interest; and the action scenes keep you turning the pages. With a little more fine-tuning, this would have been a very good book.

I thought this was an excellent thriller book. I have never read any other books by Stephen J. Cannell, a friend leant me this to read and I absolutely loved it, could not put the book down. If you are into computers a little you will enjoy this book as it adds a bit of a twist to the novel that you don't see in other thrillers. I read Patricia Cornwall & James Patterson as well, most of their books are great but I found this one to be alot more scary, I actually screamed in one section.

I must admit that the ending was not the best, it really didn't finish with the thrill you normally receive. Overall this book is worth picking up.

The final victim may be the reader. Ok I am sure it is difficult to come up with a new exciting story all the time so I do not get too disappointed when an author goes to the holy grail of thriller writing - the bad cop, good side kick murder mystery caper. But this book pulled out so many of the good old stand by's that I thought it was written just to add them in. Sure the story is good - we all know it, and the action keeps you reading that particular section of he book, but the author tried to make these dull, well used characters have some depth and he just could not pull it off. I do give him credit for trying to make these central casting characters a little more meaty, but unfortunately all it did was slow down the book. If you are looking for something new, this is probably not the one to stop on, if you are looking for a standard fair action mystery then this will fit the bill.

Three disparate characters with emotional baggage screwing up their lives team up to catch a ghoulish serial killer who uses his computer hacking skills to find and kill his victims. Final Victim is fairly entertaining and fast-paced with well-developed characters, but its plot is predictable: heroes run around and try to capture elusive villain and you know well before you crack open the book whether they will succeed or not. But my biggest criticism with the book--and this may not be fair since it's not a horror book--is it wasn't scary. I was hoping for some frightening and spine-chilling scenes but there weren't any. Despites its shortcomings, I still recommend it. It was fun to read most of the time.

Stephen J. Cannell writes telebooks or cinemabooks. Having given us such classic t.v. shows as ROCKFORD FILES, A-TEAM, and WISEGUY, he knows how to write action scenarios, and fill them with almost cardboard characters that work only because they're in his books. We have the renegade DOC agent, John Lockwood, divorced from his beautiful wife, separated from his sweet daughter; the beautiful, brilliant and lonely Karen Lawson, a victim of only doing what her father wanted, who finds herself paired with Lockwood; and the handsome dashing (think Johnny Depp) computer hacker who seeks revenge on the man who put him in jail (Lockwood). Throw in the obscenely vulgar villain named Leonard Land/Rat/Wind Minstrel, who suffered abuse as a child from his religously fanatical mother, and you have the ingredients for this enjoyable diversion.
Toward the end, Cannell seems to make some incredulous things happen to hasten the plot, because if the two heroes are as bad off as they've been depicted up to this point, there is no way in hell they could do what they do at the end. But, hey, let's have fun, popcorn, etc., and enjoy this dose of high-velocity fluff.

The beginning of this book had a thriller-start that kept on giving. I have read almost all of Patricia Cromwell's and James Patterson's books and this has gotten them beat by far. This kept my attention (which is hard to do) and kept me guessing throughout the entire book. This is a definite "hat's off" to the author. I simply hope that Leonard Land doesn't come creeping around my house!

Stephen Cannell has shown that he can be very diverse as to his plots, but Final Victim isn't his best. The characters are well drawn, but the plot is fairly unbelievable and the antagonist is a little too evil.

Stephen J. Cannell,s second book, Final Victim is not as good as his first, The Plan but it is still a page turner. Mr. Cannell has a knack for creating characters. All of the leads are fascinating especially Karen Dawson a beatiful genious with an apparent compulsive obsessive personality. The villian is scary although a bit farfetched. The plot is chilling and ghoulish. This is part horror, part drama, part action adventure. A good book overall.

This book was a fast-paced, all nighter! Haven't read Cannell's next books yet, but if they are anything like this one, I'm hooked! After you read this one you too will ask "When is the movie coming out!"

The conspicuous giant was supposed to be supersmart and a computerwiz. He turned out to be a bumbling slob who was mediocre with computech. Don't expect this to be a computer crime book, the use of the computer ended midway in the book. The ending was not plausible nor believable.