Twisted Book Review

Twisted by Steve Cavanagh
on January 24, 2019
Genres: Mystery/Thriller
Format: Paperback
Goodreads

BEFORE YOU READ THIS BOOK I WANT YOU TO KNOW THREE THINGS:
1. The police are looking to charge me with murder.
2. No one knows who I am. Or how I did it.
3. If you think you've found me. I'm coming for you next.
After you've read this book, you'll know: the truth is far more twisted...

Steve Cavanagh has been an author on my radar for a little while now, and I wanted to dip my toes before jumping head first into another series. Twisted is a standalone mystery and I really struggled all the way through it if I’m honest. The pacing felt bizarrely slow especially with everything that was going on, and I don’t know if I will be picking up his other books if I’m honest.

Characters in Twisted

The funny part about this book is it started off so well. We follow a group of characters as they get drawn into a mysterious psuedonym and death threats. This was an interesting concept to me and you’re kind of thrown in at the deep end. I won’t go into the specifics of each of the characters because I don’t want to spoil anything, however there was a lack of development. The one reason I think I struggled is I didn’t care for any of the characters. I didn’t root for any of them and found them all inherently unlikeable. Which is usually fine but there were no redeeming factors or arcs to save them.

There was a nice juxataposition between the three main characters and the police force. But again I wish this had been used more throughout. Watching the two very different groups of characters work through the information helped move the plot forward. I enjoyed the cantakerous detective and the relationsip he had with his staff, I just feel like it was all superficial and needed more depth.

Bad Bits in Twisted

The underdevelopment doesn’t stop at the characters unfortunately. I found that the entire plot and story struggled to become a coherent piece of writing. It was almost like Cavanagh was jumping from point to point without exploring any of it. As though he wanted to get through the story as fast as possible. It made for a confusing and unsatisfactory read at times. I would have loved for it to be a little grittier and delve into the motivations of the characters all the more.

I don’t want to give too much away but I’m still not sure how we got to the ending. Some of it read as though Cavanagh googled aspects and popped that into the story as a twist. It was frustrating especially as if there had been just a little more put into it the twist would have been one of the better ones I had read.

Good bits

I will say the potential in Twisted was stunning. I could see exactly where the story was going and although it was underdeveloped in my opinion the intricacies were well thought out and the concept was brilliant. This book made me want to scream because there was so much that could have happened and didn’t.

What now?

I have the first book in the Eddie Flynn series on my Kindle. And have heard great things about it. I am however currently in my fantasy era so we might have to wait for the next crime and mystery hit before I pick that one up. Based on this book, his standalones don’t interest me but I may pick the series up.

Have you read the Eddie Flynn series? Do you find it better than the standalones? Let me know what you think!