Customer Reviews

The Killing Room

5 star:		(39)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

picked it up free for the kindle, great book, like the description says if you like like Dean Koonz you will enjoy this one, fast pace keeps you on edge

Got this for free, and I would have probably never bought it otherwise. But I could not stop reading this book, even though I figured out a major plot point or two early on in the book. It is a ghost story, but with such a neat take on the idea (the family lottery) that it just grabbed my interest from the first sentence and never let go. And it was left a bit open at the end, which I love.

Like I said, this one was free. But now I have a new author to follow!

This book was an average horror novel. It was a bit predictable at times, but held my interest enough to keep reading to the end. Comparisons to Koontz are a bit premature and the book had entirely too many spelling and gramatical errors for my liking. Not bad for a quick read, but there is much better kindle fodder out there.

For nine years and three hundred and sixty-four days, the Young Mansion in Maine is an ordinary home. The room that remains locked always is quiet except on the first day of a new decade. A sacrifice of a family member must be made so every ten years a lottery is held and the selected one is left inside the room.

This has been going on since 1930 with everyone who spent time in the room dead except for one survivor. Since the room is locked, the other family members assume the people commit suicide except for that one female who lived, but her mind was fried and spent four decades inside a padded cell. The patriarch Howard Young hires former FBI Agent Carolyn Cartwright who has dealt with supernatural cases to find a way to break the curse. Carolyn knows her first step is to learn what happened in 1930 in that room and the second step is to pray she and the Young family survive the truth.

Readers will thoroughly enjoy the locked room mystery inside a haunted house tale reminiscent of early King and Koontz. There is a steady growing tension as the answers to the cause percolates, but the solution seems to never boil to the surface. John Manning provides the audience with a chilling tale as the heroine knows there is only one way to learn the truth.

Harriet Klausner

I cannot believe the number of decent reviews this book has gotten- who is writing these reviews? Preteens? This book is hideously written, the plot is so thin you can see through it, and the character development is so lame or nonexistent that they're stick figures.

I finished reading/skimming it (reluctantly, and laughing at its stupidity the whole time) because I downloaded the book for free and I felt like I can only give an honest review of a book I fully read. By all means, read this book if you like the literary stylings of an 8th grader, but if you prefer to spend your time reading something worth your time and doesn't insult your intelligence, this isn't for you.

Plot: A family is haunted by a curse- this curse means that every ten years one or more family members will die (murdered by the resident ghost that lives in the basement of the family home). An uncle who is the family patriarch attempts to end the curse by hiring a series of detectives to solve the mystery. The woman the uncle hires does no investigative work except for going into her room to read files. By the detective's deadline to end the curse, the best she could do is advise the family to protect themselves by wearing healing crystals before they enter the basement. Healing crystals... really.

Characters: This is an example of how the "author" was developing his main character: "A professor recommended her for a spot as a paid intern to the local district attorney. So impressed was the D.A. with her astute skills at observation and deduction that, upon graduation, he provided a glowing reference to the New York field office of the FBI."

Well, I guess it's clear that the author has no idea what district attorneys do all day, or who they hire as interns (none of which are paid, by the way) since he just pulled this sentence out of his ear without any background information whatsoever. D.A.'s hire legal interns- legal interns who are on a career paths to become lawyers. The author also glosses over what the intern does all day saying that her boss was so impressed with her "observation" skills and skills at "deduction"... what does this even mean? Lawyers don't "observe" and "deduce" all day... they write and research. This might seem like a petty observation, but this is sloppy writing and I couldn't take the book seriously afterward.

This was the worst book I have ever read and I am a voracious reader. I obviously do not recommend this book. If this guy can call himself an author, just call me Leonardo Da Vinci.

After reading the reviews, I had high hopes for this book because it sounded so perfect for me. I'm a big Stephen King/Dean Koontz fan but comparing John Manning to either is a stretch. The plot had many inconsistencies that made me wonder if it had been proof read at all. For example, Carolyn is 26 but we are supposed to believe she has had time to complete college and establish herself as the FBI "go to" expert in the paranormal, yet her keenly honed senses failed to recognize a con man of the most basic kind in her personal life. We are told she has never had a lot of money, that her FBI salary "never reflected the esteem in which she was held by her superiors", that she pays for her family's medical care, that there is very little money left for her at the end of the month, but that the aforementioned con man wipes out her savings and investment portfolio - "hundreds of thousands of dollars, gone"
How does a 26 year old with "very little money" end up with savings and investment portfolios in the hundreds of thousands of dollars? Details like that bother me.
The writing itself was a little clunky and the plot line a little cliched for my liking BUT I kept reading and in the end, isn't that what it's all about? I'll give John Manning a year or two to develop and try him again then. I didn't like Dean Koontz in the beginning either!

I bought this for my Kindle app on the iPhone and I loved it! It was super easy to read, just as if I was holding the actual book in my hand. I couldn't put it down! It kept me on the edge of my seat, wanting more! I'm hoping someday a sequel will follow...

I really liked this book. Even though most mystery/thriller readers will be able to figure out the ending before they get to it, the story to the end was enjoyable. I was a little put off by some of the language used by the teens in the book and felt that it could have been left out. However, I really could not put the book down and read it in one sitting. I recommend this book to others.

Wasn't sure I would like this book, but by the end if the prologue, I was hooked. Read it in ine day. It is a real mind blower that allows you to constantly make and change your own perception of what is really happening! READ THIS BOOK!The Killing Room

this book kept my attention from the first chapter to the last sentence. I couldn't put my kindle down.