Steve Review: Malice by Lisa Jackson

Jul 30, 2010 by shanyn

Title: Malice
Hardcover, 432 pages
Author: Lisa Jackson
Publisher: Kensington
Publication Date: April 1, 2009

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Book Summary:
The scent is unmistakable – gardenias, sweet and delicate, the same perfume that his beautiful first wife, Jennifer, always wore. Opening his eyes in the hospital room where he’s recovering from an accident, New Orleans detective Rick Bentz sees her standing in the doorway. Then Jennifer blows him a kiss and disappears. But it couldn’t have been Jennifer. She died twelve years ago…

Once out of the hospital, Bentz begins to see Jennifer everywhere, haunting and taunting him, then vanishing without a trace. Could she still be alive? But it was Bentz who identified Jennifer’s body after her horrible car wreck, and there had been no question in his mind that it was her crumpled form behind the wheel, her clothes, her wedding ring. He’s never doubted it – until now. He can’t tell his new wife, Olivia, about the sightings or his secret fear that he’s losing his mind, even though he knows she suspects something is wrong. But Olivia is also hiding a secret…

When a copy of Jennifer’s death certificate arrives in the mail, emblazoned with a red question mark, Bentz follows the postmark trail to Los Angeles, returning to the painful memories he’s tried so hard to forget, and straight into a killer’s web. Reconnecting with his former LAPD colleagues, Bentz begins to piece together Jennifer’s last days, but each new discovery only serves as a chilling reminder of how little he really knew about his first wife. Then the murders begin, each victim a part of Jennifer’s past, each grisly corpse pointing to Bentz as the prime suspect.

Someone’s been waiting patiently, silently. Someone who knows exactly what happened that night twelve years ago and has been anticipating Bentz’s every move. Soon it will be Bentz’s turn to suffer for his sins. But he won’t be the only one made to pay the ultimate price. For a diabolical killer has now made Olivia the prime target…

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Steve Review:
This is off the normal beaten path for me eh? This crime thriller was sent to me by the lovely Joy and I figured I could most certainly give it a try. Well, I tried it! Haha, the book was ok but definitely not my cup of tea and I honestly didn’t find anything outstanding about it.
I’m guessing there are other books with Rick Bentz (the main character featured) in them since it sort of hints at it throughout the book. He is a decent character, but more of one that I would think would appeal to lonely middle aged women. Not that there is anything wrong that? The plot itself also was inventive, sometimes surprising, and quite cutthroat. Nothing super to complain about nor to praise with the book.

If you pressed me to pick a “biggest beef” with the book I would have to say the constant changes in PoV (points of view) in the story. You hear a dabble from this character, a bit from some no name unimportant perspectives, and a mix of the main characters throughout. It just didn’t flow that well for me. If you continued to press me and told me to choose the best thing about this book, I would ask, “why are you doing this? /sad face”. Then I would answer hesitantly: the ending/mystery surrounding the villain of the book. Not easy to guess at. If you really could not stop yourself from grilling me further on the book, I would clam up and just point resolutely to the points scale.

Book Cover: 2/5 – Scary blue eyed bloody baby? Hm, more adjectives?
Book Title: 3/5 – Malice. Malice malice MALice malICE. Relevant at least.
Plot: 6/10 – Crime thrillaaaaah. Sometimes surprising!
Characters: 6/10 – This # was deduced from the # of characters’ points of view in the book divided by 600. If you throw 3600 characters at me in a book I have to give you at least 6 points I think. Plus, Bentz was ok ;) .
Writing: 5/10 – Mentioned above were the too many PoV’s, I also thought that Ms. Jackson tried to draw the suspense out for sooooo long in the book it kind of shot itself in the foot.
Ending: 8/10 – Pretty good tbh.

Total: 30/50 – If you think about it, that is 60%, good enough to pass high school! The book really wasn’t bad, like I stated above, just not my “thing”. Imma let Lisa Jackson do her, and I’m gonna do me, lol. However, if you ARE into crime/suspense drama thrillers, the ending/mystery together would be worth the read.

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