Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Rattleman, by George D. Shuman

Up and down the Appalachian Mountains, women have been disappearing.  Maybe some of them ran away, maybe some were wilderness enthusiasts who had accidents, but it quickly becomes apparent that some of them have been the victims of a serial killer.  Add in the drama of small town life, combined with federal agents, and you have the makings of a great story.

As someone who grew up in the foothills of Appalachia, books like this simultaneously thrill and frighten me. I know there is still a thriving community of people, particularly in West Virginia, who live by the old mountain ways.  No way would I want to be venturing into the wilderness, because I think things like this really can, and do, happen.  The plot of the story is, for the most part, pretty solid.  Some of the subplots felt a little contrived for me, and I was not sure how much they pushed the story along.

The characters who needed to be well developed were, but there were plenty of other who were really not all that important to the story, so I did not care about them.  I did not care about the someone being jilted by his fiance, or the fact that he was now being sexually harassed by a woman from the forensic team.  I just could have done without all that.  But the portions of the book focusing on the killer and his victims were spectacular.  I did feel a slight lack of resolution, regarding some of the actions of the killer, but the way the story ended was spot on perfect. 

I received a review copy courtesy of the publisher, in exchange for my honest review.




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