Thirteen: The serial killer isn't on trial. He's on the jury (Eddie Flynn Series)

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Carl lifted fingertips to his face, brushed at his cheekbones. “You see this? When you’re a variant, people don’t look at this. They go right through the skin, and all they see is what’s written into your double helix.” Thirteen started off very promising, with tight writing and genuinely tense moments, but was ultimately short on delivery. In it, I very much wanted affirmation of Morgan’s story-writing potential having read his popular Altered Carbon, which I enjoyed but still left wanting. Thirteen was set in a precursor world 100 years before Altered Carbon, so expect the technology to be less thrilling. Unfortunately, the technology in Thirteencontributed to conveniences but was not quite integral to story development. I’m not going to lie, I pre-judged this. I made an ass out of myself to myself, because I assumed... certain things. Out of honesty, I’ll admit I was expecting this to be somewhat juvenile.

Como thriller judicial, funciona de maravilla. Su lectura es ágil y el entretenimiento está asegurado. A Eddie Flynn lo “conocí” en una novela corta: “The cross”, y ya me pareció interesante. Esta es la cuarta de la serie, así que tendré que seguir con las anteriores, ya que te deja con ganas. Tenemos a un asesino que a mí me ha recordado por momentos a Hannibal Lecter, aunque con menos dosis de sadismo, y a un abogado que antes de serlo fue delincuente, lo que utiliza en su provecho para sus tejemanejes judiciales, y por supuesto, con una vida familiar que se ha ido al garete, ¡faltaría más! Y como queda dicho, una trama que, sin ser demasiado exigentes, se puede leer de un tirón. The author also got under my skin towards the end of the novel by seeming to take great joy in a couple of witty lines he thought up, so much that he threw them into the mix a couple of times. The lines were witty the first time, but when they entered into dialouge the second time it just irked me in that irrational way that I get irked. I guess he thought that they were jokey and witty enough to be 'things people in the future would say for laughs, or that is was some kind of idiom, but he introduces these lines for the first time way to late in the book for that to be thought of (there were a couple of them, the one I remember is "Like a Jesusland preacher with a choirboy")). Thirteen is the fourth book in the Eddie Flynn series but it can be read as standalone. This is my first book of the series and I surely regret not reading the first 3 books of the series. As a part legal and a part psychological thriller, the author has combined the best of both genres to create a mystery thriller par excellence.I like the character of Eddie. I like the way his mind works. Having been a conman prior to becoming a lawyer, his mind works a little differently to most lawyers. He thinks outside the box. And he does not use orthodox methods in the courtroom. And yet, he is fully believable. This is the dark side of Dawson's Creek and Buffy; it's the worst-case scenario emerging from the cute sleepover kits on sale in toyshops to nine-to-11-year-olds with their hair braids and makeup. But, more than that, it's a poignant presentiment of a certain sort of contempt with which girls can expect to be treated when they are their mothers' age. Quite simply deserves to be HUGE. If you read a thriller as good this year, it’s only because you’ve read this one twice.’ The story is predictable but I feel that it is more about friendship than the plot itself, as it is re-telling a well- know tale but more from the point of view of an observer rather than the villain or the victim. While reading this book, I learned that it is actually the fourth in a series centered on Eddie Flynn. This actually impressed me because the main reoccurring characters are so well developed in Th1rt3en, despite their previous introduction. I really appreciated this, it allowed this book to standalone. So if you don't want to commit to a series, do not let that deter you from reading Th1rt3en.

Melanie toughly does her parental job as best she can, yet often plays the middle-youth kidult, cooing to Tracy as she does her hair: "You'd look great with some honey-blonde entertainment streaks" and secretly flattered by Evie telling her she looks like her daughter's "hot older sister". Joshua Kane has been preparing for this moment his whole life. He’s done it before. But this is the big one. A brilliant, twisty, ingeniously constructed puzzle of a book. Steve Cavanagh pulls off an enviable premise with panache.’ I really enjoy reading about twisted characters. Hell, I enjoy a good thriller/mystery any day, so the idea of having a cult killing boys born on the start of the new millennium, well, I don't know about you, but that almost sounds like it could be believable, and while areas of this novel did take a beating in terms of believability, I mean, come on, Adam is thirteen, he's a year older than my brother, and I seriously could not see my brother doing anything close to what Adam did, he'd more than likely be one of the twelve already well and truly dead, not to mention, who would like their children stay at a music festival, at the age of thirteen, with no supervision, that and the fact that Megans parents instantly believed everything the police said over the words of a boy they've known their whole lives, I'm sorry, but what? Yet, these are things that quite possibly only bothered me, there's were the features in the novel that I could tell this was Hoyle's début, that this was aimed at people a lot younger than I am, yet I do have to admit, the childish features and age of the protagonists, in some areas, made this book highly enjoyable. There's something really quite fantastic about children at the ages of fourteen and so on being able to do and take on what these characters did, what Adam and Megan were capable of during Thirteen were things even I know I wouldn't be able to take on, so the fact that Hoyle managed to make me not only appreciate what they were doing, but how they were doing it, was fantastic.

Customer reviews

Joshua Kane, a serial killer with a unique ability, plots his way onto the Hollywood murder jury. He has a vested interest in the outcome of the case.

The story really shines in the second half with Eddie’s incredible courtroom skills and his battles with the DA. Having said that, it never gets too technical and can be enjoyed even if you don’t particularly like legal thrillers. What happens when a Serial Killer finagles his way onto a Jury? Let’s call it what it is: One Wild Ride!There seems to be an assumption that the elimination of violence was achieved by crowds of conformist, civilised people hunting down the variant monsters with torches and pitchforks as if they were Frankensteins – and that's the only evolution that's ever taken place: EXCERPT: At ten after five on a raw December afternoon, Joshua Kane lay on a cardboard bed outside the Criminal Courts Building in Manhattan and thought about killing a man. Not just any man. he was thinking about someone in particular. it was true that Kane had, at times, while on the subway or watching passers-by, occasionally thought about killing a nameless, random New Yorker who happened to fall into his line of vision. It could be the blonde secretary reading a romance novel on the K train, a Wall Street banker swinging an umbrella as he ignored Kane's please for change, or even a child holding its mother's hand on a crosswalk. Clay begins the next tape as he sees Tony walking out of Rosie’s and getting in his car but not driving away. On this tape, Hannah reveals that the poem everyone at school was sharing around and analyzing in English class was actually hers— Ryan Shaver, the editor of the Lost-N-Found Gazette, stole it from her and made copies. Clay leaves Rosie’s. Tony calls him over and tells him to get into his car, revealing that he has the second set of tapes. If you prefer your SCI-FI in the vein of Blade Runner then you'll dig Thirteen. It's dark, gritty, and brutal, with insights of society and mankind that ring all too true. Another tiny complaint I have with this book is that I didn't understand the whole "thirteen kids that need to be killed before they turn fourteen" thing. Like...why? The author didn't explain the concept properly and it just put me off the book. Was it because they were devil's spawn or an alien or what? So confusing.