Black Heart: A totally gripping serial killer thriller (Detective Dan Riley Book 1)

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I would recommend this one for fans of grimdark, villain POVs, grim and bleak worlds, necromancy, fast reads, and those who listen to audiobooks. Fabulous book. A serial killer is hunted by Detective Dan Riley and his team. Grips you and doesn't let go.’ Consumer Reviewer Khraen is the stand-out character, of course. Khraen is in part an archetype who tries to answer two age-old questions. Fair warning though, this book is Dark like really really dark. Brutal killings, Flaying, Sacrifices and much more are mentioned in this book. But I personally believe its necessary for this book to get that immersive feeling of this brutal world. Devouring new shards of his heart and recollecting his memories, the MC starts gradually changing, which leads to moral debates within himself as he uncovers the dark truth (of his past deeds and his abilities.)

Black Heart: The Number One international bestseller The Ink Black Heart: The Number One international bestseller

Khraen just woke up, and he’s starving. He’s confused and disoriented and doesn’t remember much at all of his life before he’d been killed. All he knows now is that he is being drawn to the fragments of his obsidian heart that have been scattered about the world by whoever it was that murdered him. His journey isn’t as simple as you would expect for just a traveller, because racism exists in this world, too. There are racial prejudices, because POC are thought to be ‘’stained’’= related to demonologists, who ruled a prosperous empire thousands of years ago, but required souls to feed the demons. The prose in this was pretty great, I can’t speak to typos or errors since I listened to the audio, but the dialogue was natural and fluid. It was descriptive enough to create a world but not so much so that it slowed down the story. As far as originality, it’s not that the concept of wizards vs evil necromancers is a new thing, but I haven’t seen it from the necromancer’s point of view before, so in that way it felt fresh. As we discover who Khraen used to be in his previous life, an internal fight arises in him. With every devoured shard it’s getting harder and harder to differentiate between the often conflicting thoughts – the ones of the new (Khraen with conscience and remains of a good moral compass) and the old Khraen ((cruel, merciless, ready to pay the cost). There’s a lot of self-doubt and self-persuasion, and I absolutely loved that! Only thing that bothered me about this book is the revelations. I saw almost all of the revelation a mile ago but it didn't hinder my reading experience at all.Who was I? The kind of person who thought only of themselves? The kind of person who abandoned those in need? As there’s nobody else to remember what the world used to be like before the wizards’ reign, nobody really doubts whether wizards are those men of high moral standing they claim to be or not. He brilliantly captures the change of Khraen’s voice as he ponders on his identity and the essence of identity in general. Each new Shard allows Khraen to reassemble himself and regain his memories. If you’ve already read Fletcher, you know better than to expect happy endings and uplifting mood. Here, though, the darker side of the story hides behind the darkly humorous voice.

Black Heart by Robert Galbraith | Waterstones The Ink Black Heart by Robert Galbraith | Waterstones

The water elemental cowered. It remembered me. It remembered how I brought it here, how I bent it to my will. This is definitely an anti-hero tale told from first person with Khaern as the one who is trying to uncover just who he was and who he is now. Along the way he meets Henka and Shalayn who are two very different women with two vastly different impressions they leave on him. This story is dark and tells the tale of a man (well, kind of a man) called Khaern who wakes from within the ground with little memory of his life and legacy. He's sure that he needs to find out more, and begins to slowly do so, but his tale is filled with sadness, death and loss, and he's soon to find out far more than he bargained on. He doesn’t act like a human being; rather as a savage creature focused on survival, living off bugs and roots. Only after finding an obsidian shard that pierces his skin and finds its way to his heart, he regains parts of his identity. No le pongo las cinco estrellas porque como he dicho antes ha habido cosas que me han faltado, pero me lo he pasado bien leyéndolo. Supongo que ha sido un aire fresco de tanta novela romántica últimamente. Aunque, a decir verdad, me hubiera gustado haberlo leído en otro momento porque no me encuentro en mi mejor momento, pero bueno, lo hecho, hecho está.However, both of those things were kind of dragged down for me by the execution of the story. The narrative is overly repetitive where it feels like it hits the same story beats over and over and over again. Ditto for the characterization. I don't know how many times we had to get inner thoughts from the main character about his conflicted nature. My best estimate is approximately 10,000. I found myself saying "Dude you murdered someone in cold blood right at the beginning. You're a homicidal maniac. Just embrace it." Fletcher had a similar issue with how often we are told people at large dislike the main character because of his skin color. It feels like he belabors this point to absurdity. As he is exploring the world and slowly but persistently assembling the bits and pieces of his memory, the MC discovers the pretty lies wizards feed to everybody else and oh boy, he won’t put up with it. Asimismo, la historia es interesante y me ha parecido bastante original. Lo único es que me ha faltado un mapa, así como un poco más de desarrollo del wordbuilding. Sin embargo, lo que más destaco son los personajes, nunca me había encontrado con unos personajes tan grises, y yo que pensaba que los de La Primera Ley o los de La Compañía Negra lo eran, pero estos igual están a un nivel superior. Además, me puede que el protagonista se plantee si sus actos son buenos o malos moralmente y las reflexiones sobre ello. Cuore di Ossidiana è stata una lettura ricca e scorrevole che mi ha coinvolto dall'inizio alla fine. Orsù gente, unitevi anche voi alla #fletchermania e percorrete il Sentiero di Ossidiana.