Customer Reviews

Left For Dead

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This latest Kevin O'Brien thriller, LEFT FOR DEAD, flows very nicely. It has a fascinating premise -- the only surviving victim of a serial killer has amnesia. This poses an amazing scenerio. Her life is in grave danger because she is the only person that can identify the killer, but she only remembers things in bits and pieces, and doesn't know who to trust. In theory, this should be a 5-star book, but I seemed to figure out the ending less than halfway through. Many of the clues and paranoid character traits tipped me off. I also found a dozen or more spelling and grammatical error that annoyed me. Nevertheless, it was a wild, suspenseful ride and I definitely recommend this book. On a personal note, I very much appreciated Kevin using my name as one of the characters. It made my day. Thanks, Kevin. As I said five books ago, you have a fan for life.

This writer just keeps getting better and better. It has a lot of twists and turns in it. One minute you think this is what happened and then the next minute you think something different and it is another outcome.

This is one of the most best selling elements to reading a good suspense book is to keep the reader guessing and I can honestly say without any hesitation that this is what the writer of this book does.

This book is good for those who love good mysteries, fiction about amnesiac victims and make sure you are not home alone at night while readint this. It is very scary without being gross.

I must say, Kevin has outdone himself with this one!!! Once I started it, I could not put it down and finished it over into the night. I love ALL of Kevin's books, but this one had to be the best yet!!! The suspense kept building until I thought it would drive me mad before I finished the book.

Thanks Kevin for the lost sleep - HA HA but thank you for a wonderful read - I have told many people about your books and they are all enjoying them as much as I have! Hurry and get us a new one to keep me from driving the people at Books a Million and Barns and Nobel crazy !!!

I read this book in 24 hours--with very few hours of sleep. It was a great book. It was captivating and kept me guessing. The ending was a surprise in many ways.
I recommend this as a great beach/pool book when you have little else to do but read.
Enjoy.

I enjoyed this book quite a bit. There were a lot of different twists and turns in it to keep me guessing throughout. I do agree with the previous reviewer about the spelling and grammatical errors. There were quite a few of them. I haven't seen that many errors in a book in a long time. For that reason it gets four out of five stars from me. However, it was still a very entertaining book to read.

Just finished reading "Left For Dead" . It was a fantastic book. Kevin has done it again. I was thoroughly entertained throughout the book and hated for it to end. Can't wait for another book to be available to read as I am sure it will be a great one. Anyone looking for a good book to curl up with you can't miss with "Left For Dead". Enjoy!

This book was awesome for many different reasons. I have been reading Kevin for quite a while now and have read every book. I really like how he was able to keep me guessing even after I knew who the killer was. Incredible, I just thought the book was over then everything starts coming together and he unfolds the masterpiece that he wrote. I thought the characters in this book were very well defined and likeable. Kevin is a true master at his art and you should read this book in fact buy the rest his books because you will end up like me wanting and waiting for more.

I started this at home one day while sick. I was immediately hooked. By nightfall, not only was I feeling better, I had finished the entire thing. Disregard the poor reviews for this book, which are incomprehensible. This is psychological suspense of the first order; if, like me, you're a fan of Stephen White and Lisa Gardiner but have exhausted those authors, give Kevin O'Brien a spin. I look forward to reading other novels by Mr. O'Brien. In "Left for Dead", he convincingly creates the Pacific Northwest setting of the San Juan islands region, in a multilayered plot. In Washington State, a serial killer is on the loose; nicknamed "Rembrandt" because each of his victims have been found heavily made-up, with a plastic bag over their heads to preserve his handiwork, this cunning killer, a Ted-Bundy like charmer, is abducting young women at an alarming rate. His calling card: each time, a pair of women's panties is left displayed at the scene of the abduction. When a woman is found shot in the chest and left for dead in a junkyard, it looks like the Rembrandt killer has left a survivor. Only problem is, she has no memory of being abducted or anything from the past several years. She doesn't even know her own name. Christened "Jane Doe", she begins to piece together memories, bit by bit. But Rembrandt is still out there. Can she remember enough to help the police catch him before she becomes his next victim . . .again?

This book blew my mind in its ability to be bad. This is not a thriller or a suspense novel, it is a melodrama, a soap opera. Sure there are endless murders and bad guys who can be everywhere at all times and characters who just happen to always "sense" somebody there and enough use of deus ex machina to make you puke. Everytime a character is in trouble a branch falls, a wave comes, a bump in the road. Jeesh already. And alas, there is no mystery here...O'Brien forecasts everything in a narrative that could easily have been 100 pages less. I relented and gave it two stars over one because he can at least write decent prose, if a little too hung up on colloquialisms (ye gods).

My two summer beach books are this brand new O'Brien and Harry Shannon's terrific mystery "Memorial Day (A Mick Callahan Novel)"
and they both rocked. Kevin O'Brien, with this one, scores with his best work since "Watch Them Die," he is a master of the creepazoid character. Recommended.