Make Them Cry

by Kevin O'Brien

A chilling read from king of the Seattle serial killer thriller and New York Times bestseller, Kevin O'Brien. Perfect for fans of Chris Carter, Karin Slaughter and Mary Burton.Everyone has secrets. Some are meant to be kept. But others can kill.The beautiful young judge. The hardworking waitress. The handsome college student. The victims are separate, unconnected, but with one gruesome detail in common.A clever serial killer is stalking the streets of Seattle, searching for his next victim. Creating a monument of madness, building victim by victim, piece by piece and bone by bone...

Genres: Mystery, Thriller, Fiction, Suspense, Audiobook, Mystery Thriller, Crime

Mass Market Paperback

First published May 1, 2002

Reviews

[Kristofer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh.... Kept me entertained but the end seemed a little too surreal. I also hated all of the typos and grammar mishaps. Being from AK our state capital is actually not spelled Juno- that is the name of a movie starring Ellen Page. And it seemed a bit drawn out at times. I will try the author again.

[Steve · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you like gay Catholic murder mysteries, this book is for you. Not quite what I was expecting though. It took a long time to get started and I picked up on who the killer was immediately. Overall not bad, but I've read many better thrillers.

[Rick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sort of like a literary Lifetime movie. It had a good premise, but the story sort of plodded along with no real surprises or genuine conflict (the author failed to make me really feel the suspense, which is part of the whole point of a thriller).

[Jackalyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Found this book difficult to read. Struggled getting into the story and struggled to keep reading. My reading OCD love will not allow me put a book down once I start reading it, but struggled so much with this one I started another at the same time and could not put that one down. Consequently, I took longer than normal reading this one only to realize I read it many years ago. This is a dark read and that is how I felt each time I picked the book up to read it. My final thought......I did not like the book very much.

[Dale · Rating 2 out of 5]

I hope this was one of O'Brien's early books. The plot of this psychological thriller was good enough, but I was never frightened much less shocked by any of the killings due to the lack of depth to any of the characters. None of the characters, even the main ones, were developed. The book was hectic and much of the dialogue was amateurish and seemed made up just to fit the moment. It is about a serial killer and centers around a Seminary. O'Brien makes a bit too much of the gay aspect.

[Perm Clark · Rating 3 out of 5]

⭐️⭐️⭐️ This is my personal 5 star rating system because I’m too lazy to write a review for every book.

5 stars -> OMFG. I couldn’t stop listening. I was engaged from beginning to end. The story & narrator was amazing. I 100% recommend this book & author. I was able to clearly follow each and every character.

4 stars -> It was pretty good. I would’ve rated 5 stars, But either the ending was lacking, I struggled to keep up with characters, or the story didn’t keep me fully engaged. The narrator was pretty good as well. I’m on the fence about recommending this book, It could go either way.

3 Stars -> It was boring at times & I missed chunks of the story. I most likely struggled to keep up with character developments. The only way I would recommend this book is if it was part of a series. The narrator was most likely average or just couldn’t fix a mediocre book.

2 Stars -> It was pretty horrible. I used it as background noise because I hadn’t had a chance to search for another book. The book either had a bad narrator, The character development was non existent, or the story was hot garbage. I would not recommend this book.

1 Star -> The absolute only reason I listened to this book was because i had no time to search for another one & I needed background noise. It was 1 step up from listening to the radio. I wouldn’t recommend this book to my worst enemy. Everything about this book was terrible. This is only recommended for people on death row and have absolutely nothing else to read.

[Genevieve Paquette · Rating 4 out of 5]

Going with 4, despite the fact that I am not the target audience, at all. Full disclosure, practicing Catholic, here, who has no problem with folks mining my church for inspiration (it's not like we don't have a plethora of shameful, horrifying incidents to chose from...), but I do get tired of the same old cliches and tropes being trotted out.
I haaaaaate the hot priest trope. So much. Gay seminarians? Ok by me. Again a little clichéd, but I'm not pressed. It would honesty be weirder if a bunch of college guys weren't out there boning whoever. But I hate the Father What a Waste trope with a passion. So I wasn't thrilled with the romantic side plot between the handsome priest/widower and the beautiful bereaved sister of a murdered seminarian. So tacky. While it was handled reasonably well, there were a number of scenes with other characters casually mentioning their attraction to hot priests, and yeah, no. Call me a prude, but I find it creepy.

Returning to the gay seminarians...
As others have noted, it was very gay. ( I'm not a big fan of romance or major subplots involving relationships in my mysteries, so those aspectsdid not enthral me) but I feel like the subject was handled with a surprising amount of matter-of-fact neutrality and a lack of moralizing. All the more surprising as it was written in the early 2000s when it was all much more taboo. I didn't pick up on any gross stereotypes, which, again, surprising. Except, yeah, the villain wasn't hetero or celibate, so I guess maybe? But like, the villain came off less "predatory gay" stereotype and more absolutely unhinged sociopath who hears dead people and is dangerously delusional? They may honey trap their victims (of all genders) but that's just a means to an end.
And what a wonderfully bizarre and creative end it was.
It was a delight for me that, in the end, it didn't come down to CSA, rape, Fathers fathering children with parishioners or any of the standard ripped from the headlines tropes. Because a) it's overdone, and b) I'm not entertained by fictionalized accounts of (disturbingly mundane) real-life atrocities.
I like it weird, and weird is what I got.
I'm glad I stuck it out despite my initial misgivings.
The author crafts a compelling plot and his pacing, even here in one of his earlier works, is impeccable.

Finally, I just wanted to note that I didn't guess the villain until close to the end, despite some good (some would say blindingly obvious) clues. I kept second-guessing. There were a number of possibilities, lots of sleazy characters (and an unrealistic number of hot priests...), but I just couldn't figure it out. Blaming my personal biases for my failure, haha.

[Slayermel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This story takes place in a seminary school. The body of a young man is found washed up on the banks of the lake and it turns out he was one of the Students who attended. He is also not the first student to have mysteriously drowned in this very lake. There have been a few students who have died at this school in various ways. One of the priests, Father Jack McFarland, is not convinced the young man John drowned. Why would he be out swimming in the lake in April, the waters are friggid. He also can't get past the fact that he was found in his underwear and has a couple of toes missing.
Jack teams up with John's sister Maggie to try and get to the bottom of what happened.

[Debbie’s reviews 🌸📚📚📚🌸 · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was a reread for me and I can honestly say that I enjoyed it even more than the first time. I was on edge the whole entire time while reading this book and not to give anything away but I wanted Maggie and Jack to end up together so bad. You will have to read it to see if they do.. there’s something in it for everyone. I’m not big on romance but it was just enough to not steer me away. Wasn’t too much but enough to make you curious of the outcome of the characters..You need to read this book!

[Patricia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good read, different from other books I have read because it is basically a school to become a Priest... So obviously Priest as well... I would have given 5 Stars but some of the other books I have read the storyline way much better and were given 5 Stars+++++

[Jannene · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was a good book but the title doesn’t seem to try into the book. I have no idea where that title came from after reading the book. Normally the titles tie in with the book. I think this is one of the few where it does not.

[Shera Melton · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was...not good. There wasn't a single character that had brain cells or that I cared about. The premise was very far fetched (I am sorry, but I refuse to believe that a school that teaches boys to become priests would be so carefree knowing full well they were all sleeping with each other in the dorms and under the church). The dialog felt very stiff and very old-fashioned, like when you watch an old black and white movie and they are speaking oddly formal the entire time. It just didn't do anything for me, and I saw the "bad guy" coming from the 25% mark, if not earlier.

[Alycia]

Meh. The jacket blurb sounded really interesting, but the book ... not so much. None of the characters are offensive, I just can't make myself care about them.

[Dobby · Rating 2 out of 5]

1.5 stars. Intriguing premise, abysmal delivery. Too many errors that a good editor should have caught.

[Toni · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm going to try to keep this review short.Well, relatively, but beware, it might include spoilers.

I read another book or listened to another book by this author and as with any person who reads a really interesting book by an author you tend to want to read more by that author and this is where this book came in.

Within the first chapter, I started to roll my eyes, and here's why:

we start with a supposedly very smart judge. Now we don't get any kind of character development in this book. As far as i've read, we get a brief snippet of each character and a bit of their sap story from the past, So we don't know anything other than she is a lonely widow of two, who gets involved with someone from the priesthood. She first writes things down in a paper journal but then rips out most of the information that would later lead people to find out what happened to her. She falls into every trusting trap that we hear about when we read a story of a young, intelligent woman being murdered, and the killer turns out to be this good looking, very likeable, seemingly innocent and held in high regard, man. Because, of course, he's a priest he can do no wrong (sarcasm). So she's meeting up with him in hole in the wall places and sees ZERO issue with it. She walks into a hotel room that has a ton of cleaning supplies laid out and ready, and she sees zero issue with it. She sees him through the mirror of the bathroom, naked and hiding behind the bathroom door with something in his hands and she sees zero issue with it. He orders her to take off her clothes and refuses to answer her questions and she sees zero issue with it. He orders her to get into an empty jacuzzi tub, naked, and though she slightly questions it, she still does it, and it was the last thing she saw.

She dies and even more stupidly…Well, she goes missing in the eyes of everyone, but we know she died and her mother in law, who is now guardian of her two kids, finds evidence pointing to what really happened to her, but instead of turning it over to the police, decides keeping the judges good name is more important and she gets rid of all the evidence.

Then, we have a young man 18 who is put into the school to become a priest. And surprisingly, not surprisingly, his sister is from an abusive relationship. And he turns out to apparently be a very promiscuous gay man pumping himself out.

Third, the authorities are not investigating his crime. I haven't finished the book. I'm nowhere near the end of the book. I'm not even a third of the way into the book. But this book lays heavily on the “church hides all crimes“ mantra. So instead of the authorities being the lead investigators and leading this story, we have a non criminologist priest who is asked by his uppers to look into how The boy died, not who killed him, but how he died.

I haven’t gotten anywhere near the middle of the book, but i predict the killer to be the RA who seems to be the only person we have gotten a thorough description of and who knows too much info, seemed to immediately interject himself into the investigation and had a ready alibi for the exact time….suspicious.

This could have been written in such a different manner. I found it concerning that the judge was going out of her comfort zone and having this exciting sexual life and she dies, but yet we don’t dwell into her history or her “deviant” acts as some may say, the waitress likes to hit on handsome men that come into the restaurant no matter if they’re a priest and she dies and again, we hear nothing really deep about her deviant acts but then we have the boy and it seems like this boy who psychology 101 would tell you would have been acting out when his sister and him lived with an abusive person rather than now where his sister has found a place for him and her. Yet we have to hear that he was now openly prostituting himself, practically sleeping with an entire school of young possible priests, why couldn’t it be that he slept with two people and the two people are denying it and we move on with trying to figure out what happened to him?

[Alistair Cross · Rating 5 out of 5]

Make Them Cry, Kevin O’Brien, 2002

My favorite quote: “‘Why am I standing in this stupid empty tub?’ she asked. ‘So it catches all the blood,’ he replied.” (I mean, why else would you be standing in an empty tub, right?)

Notable characters: Father Jack Murphy, a widower and spiritual advisor at Our Lady of Sorrows seminary; Johnny Costello, Jack’s friend who dies under mysterious circumstances; Maggie Costello, Johnny’s sister and Jack’s friend; Peter Tobin, a talented young artist

Most memorable scene: Because Kevin O’Brien knows how to set a damned good scene, there are many memorable moments in Make Them Cry … but when I think of this book, I’ll always recall the moment when Father Jack finds his young friend John in the lake

Greatest strengths: The tension. In true Kevin O’Brien style, there’s a little (and sometimes, a lot) of it on every page in Make Them Cry. Every. Single. One.

Standout achievements: There’s a lot to admire here, but I’m going to go with its guts. With its seminary setting, list of Catholic schoolboy suspects, and sexually-charged indecencies, Make Them Cry is bound to raise some eyebrows, and to that, I say, Yay! As far as I’m concerned, the world’s collective eyebrows can never be raised quite high enough, but that’s just me …

Fun Facts: This is the first Kevin O’Brien book I ever read. I was at a bookstore with a friend looking for something new and super horrory. My friend picked up Make Them Cry, looked at it, and said, “Here. This sounds like something you’ll like.” I was like, “This doesn’t look super horrory, but okay, whatever that means.” So I bought it, took it home, and put it on my shelf where it sat, just looking all handsome and smart for about two years until one day, I finally picked it up and gave it a read. My friend was right. Make Them Cry is exactly the kind of book I like. In fact, I liked it so much I made it my mission to not only read all of Kevin O’Brien’s books, but to meet the man himself. And so I did. I didn’t stalk him exactly -- well, I guess I kinda did -- but anyway, he has since become a very dear friend to both me and my collaborator, Tamara Thorne, so I must not have been too terribly creepy about the whole thing

Other media: N/A

What it taught me: I was surprised by a lot of the more … shall we say, scandalous events that take place in Make Them Cry. This book started me on a road of research into the inner workings of the church and I found myself surprised but kinda not surprised by how many of these scandals actually take place

How it inspired me: Tamara Thorne and I created a character in Kevin O’Brien’s honor -- Ryan O’Brien -- in our gothic series, The Ravencrest Saga. Ryan is Kevin’s (fictional) nephew who aspires to be a writer just like his uncle Kevin (we don’t know how to tell him this, but Ryan has a long way to go if he ever wants to be as good as Uncle Kevin)

Additional thoughts: Even after several reads (I think I’m up to four or five now) Make Them Cry not only remains one of my favorite Kevin O’Brien books, but one of my favorites of ALL time. I attribute this to its uniqueness. There just aren’t books out there like this one. If Make Them Cry was a color, it would be one that I’ve never seen. It hits all the right notes, but in a new, refreshing way. It crosses lines and challenges the conventions of the thriller genre. In short, in a genre where the unexpected is, well, expected, Make Them Cry does the unexpected. Which was totally unexpected

Hit or Miss: Hit. And for the record, I have yet to come across a Kevin O’Brien book that misses

Haunt me: alistaircross.com

Read Make Them Cry: https://tinyurl.com/2dm35jy8

[RahJah · Rating 2 out of 5]

⭐️⭐️

𝑨𝒏 𝒂𝒕𝒎𝒐𝒔𝒑𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒄 𝒑𝒓𝒆𝒎𝒊𝒔𝒆 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝒑𝒍𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒚 𝒐𝒇𝒑𝒐𝒕𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒊𝒂𝒍, 𝒃𝒖𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒍𝒂𝒄𝒌 𝒐𝒇 𝒔𝒖𝒔𝒑𝒆𝒏𝒔𝒆, 𝒕𝒘𝒊𝒔𝒕𝒔, 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒇𝒐𝒄𝒖𝒔 𝒎𝒂𝒅𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒂 𝒅𝒊𝒔𝒂𝒑𝒑𝒐𝒊𝒏𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒅 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒎𝒆.

When a religious city is shaken by a series of disturbing murders, one priest sets out to uncover the deadly thread tying them together. The atmosphere had great potential, and the book began intriguingly, but it quickly lost its way. It felt like a collection of great ideas that lacked cohesion. There was little suspense, thrill, or any real twists; you can predict the killer's identity as soon as they are introduced, leaving you hoping for a change in direction. Unfortunately, the narrative just dragged on.

There was little character or plot development, and as the story unfolded it felt increasingly disconnected from the synopsis. Even the title never tied meaningfully into the narrative, leaving me wondering what the book was trying to say. While LGBT themes were introduced to add complexity, they felt out of place and contributed little to the story. The abundance of characters further scattered the narrative and dragged it out unnecessarily. A strong premise kept me tuned in, but the twist I waited for never materialized.

I enjoyed O’Brien’s, 𝑈𝑛𝑠𝑝𝑒𝑎𝑘𝑎𝑏𝑙𝑒, but sadly, this one fell flat for me. However, I understand that 𝑈𝑛𝑠𝑝𝑒𝑎𝑘𝑎𝑏𝑙𝑒 is a more recent work, and I appreciate a writer’s growth and development over time. If you’re into a slow-paced read and Catholic-based murder mysteries with LGBT+ themes, this might still be a good read for you.

[Kamilla · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was my first Kevin O'Brien book and I must say I enjoyed it. The Catholic muder mystery sucked me in, I couldn't put it down. The intricacies of a Catholic boys college, the teaching priests revolting behaviour, the boys' search for their identities while the priests running the organisation wish to sweep everything under the carpet that could potentially cause harm to the Church or the good name of the college - never mind that it involves a serial killer... it all made the book unputdownable.
Even though I had my suspicions about the killer's identity from early on, I couldn't put the pieces together until the very end. The book was well crafted, well put together, the story built the suspense with every page, with every clue revealed. The main characters were likeable enough to keep me wanting to read on.
All in all I did enjoy the book - even though the student's goings on did shock me a bit.
A good Catholic murder mystery, where the Church really doesn't come out on top...

[Kimberly · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a DNF for me, sadly. I had read his latest book, Hide Your Fear, and fell in love! I thought I'd go back and read some of his earlier works. The book starts out great & pulled me in. It went from great to oh-my-gosh-I'm-falling-asleep! That's not good considering I was driving while listening to the audio version. I felt like he spent way too much time giving background to stuff that wasn't really important & could've have easily been left out. There were also too many characters to keep track of. It's hard to keep people straight when the names start with the same letter. It dragged on. I came and read some other reviews to see if, perhaps, it got better. After reading some other reviews, I decided to throw in the towel. I just can't listen to mundane books. I drive through the middle of nowhere, sugar cane fields 45 min one way to work.....I HAVE TO HAVE something to keep me awake!!! Sorry, Kevin. I will try another of your books though. Can anyone recommend another book that may be better? Thanks :)

[Liss Sinclair · Rating 3 out of 5]

I actually enjoyed this book, but it wasn't what I had expected. Also, the ending kind of felt "off" to me. The timing between events just didn't seem to add up. I kept thinking there was going to be a twin situation to explain the inconsistencies.There were a few things leading to that within the story, and it would have made for an interesting twist in the end that would have flowed well. I was surprised when that never came up.
Also the title and the tag line don't really match the contents. I think if the book jacket was a better indicator of what the book was actually about, people might not be so disappointed/thrown off.🤷‍♀️

[sherman · Rating 3 out of 5]

The twist in book is so predictable that it almost falls into dramatic irony. When the story moves away from the murder mystery, it’s actually a really interesting story on the violence that repression can engender amongst male youths. Peter & John make for compelling protagonists, and perhaps should’ve been the actual focus. Great opening kill though! O’brien is clearly at his most engaged when he can simply write the kills, even if he only (rather problematically) chooses to show the female ones.

[Hales · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one was spooky enough. It was entertaining and I liked the theme the killer was using. The ending bothered me just a little bit, I know it ties to one of the character discussions about how everyone “has secrets” but sweeping everything under the rug is how they ended up in that mess to begin with. Plus I wanted more from the antagonist’s motives. There was no motive backing their obsession… unless you attribute it to their faith. (That’s not a spoiler, the setting is a religious college so faith isn’t a far fetched guess)

[Amy Ewers-Jackson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I almost marked this as DNF because I was wondering how the seminary tied in to the serial killer in the beginning, but glad I stuck with it. It was a good read, and I liked the way the main character was able to grow and figure out who the killer was. There were clues to the identity scattered throughout the book, which kept you interested. I would’ve marked it higher if I didn’t guess who it was, but it’s still a good book.

[Tarisa Reynolds · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was excited to read this one because I read Unspeakable by Kevin O’Brien, which I really enjoyed. But this dragged on too long and was really only interested g at the very beginning and the very end. It was just too drawn out with too many characters and little side stories to keep up with. It left me with more questions than answers. You don’t learn why the killer does what he does. I feel like it had so much potential but this just didn’t do it for me.

[Richard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not his best. The subject material of gay priests and homosexuals didn't float my boat but was not the reason for not enjoying the book. The story took ages to get going, too many wooden characters, too far-fetched at times and the finale where the killer was revealed was no real surprise.

I have enjoyed four of his other books, so I'll just chalk this one down to a bad day at the office.

[Susan Dennis · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was probably closer to a 3.5 star book. Set in a seminary near Seattle, a student is killed and his friend, a priest, tries to find out why and how and turns up much more. This plot was fairly sound and the characters were ok except for one or two but it was just not a thrilling thriller. I did like the Seattle angle. I wish there was more Seattle in it.

[Jeanette · Rating 4 out of 5]

Physical books take me alot longer to read with my eyesight getting worse and my work schedule. That being said this mystery was worth the reading. I didn't figure out the bad guy until nearly the end which is rare for me. There wasn't much back story as to why the guy did what he did but I'm okay with that. I didn't sympathize with him.

[trisha Imbembo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another fantastic read by Kevin O'Brien!! This one is totally different from most of his I've read. You'd never know it by the title. At first I was like, hmmmm I dunno I I'm gonna like this one, but once I got into the characters I was hooked to the very end!! You will never guess the who, but you'll try real hard, as I did and didn't see that ending coming, at all!!

[Lacey Sheridan]

Not his best, but I finished it. As always, there is a gay presence, more developed in this book; I assume this is O'brien's world. The characters weren't grippiing and the plot was a bit fractured. It held my attention, but he's written better books.

[Danielle · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5. My least favorite book from this author. The Catholic Church theme is a hit or miss. I found myself having to do a little research to understand some of the religious terminology used. Still was able to finish it. Also, less page #s than his average amount