Would you kill to write a bestseller? Well Adrian Slater says that he’s prepared to do just that – and announces the fact in a creative writing class.Lecturer Dudley Grose is convinced that Slater is a psychopath and means what he says. But the Dean of the university doesn’t believe him and neither do the cops.But when a student on the course vanishes and her bathroom is awash with blood, the police wonder if Slater has actually carried out his threat, and if the book he’s writing contains the evidence that will put him away.The Bestseller is a book about murder, but it’s also an insight into the creative writing process and how ePublishing has changed the rules for ever, creating a world where murder as entertainment might actually pay.The Bestseller is a fast-paced novella of 53,000 words, about 200 pages, with a shocking twist in the tail.It's already had a great five-star review from an Amazon Top 100 reviewer!By Midnight - See all my reviews(TOP 100 REVIEWER) This review is The Bestseller (Kindle Edition)Wannabee author Adrian Slater attends creative writing classes and reveals to the class he intends to commit a murder so he can have a factual basis for his novel.Stephen Leather has come up with another engrossing thriller that at around 53,000 words provides an absorbing journey to an unexpected destination. Readers may think they have worked out the ending before reaching the climax but as they read on, the story takes a final twist - but you'll have to read the story to find out what happens!His offerings have ranged from the short very gentle Inspector Zhang locked room mysteries; the excellent Dan (Spider) Shepherd series; the Jack Nightingale occult detective series through to the hard biting novellas specifically written as ebooks 'The Basement' and 'Once Bitten'. Those who found that for them 'The Basement' was a tad on the gory side will find 'The Bestseller' does not come into the same category; nor are there any vampires - I simply found 'The Bestseller' an excellent fast-paced thriller and would heartily recommend it.The formatting and flow of the text is excellent with noticeably absent typos - something which can be a problem with some ebooks.Stephen Leather is one of the UK's most successful thriller writers. He was a journalist for more than ten years on newspapers such as The Times, the Daily Mail and the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong. Before that, he was employed as a biochemist for ICI, shovelled limestone in a quarry, worked as a baker, a petrol pump attendant, a barman, and worked for the Inland Revenue. He began writing full time in 1992. His bestsellers have been translated into more than ten languages. He has also written for television shows such as London's Burning, The Knock and the BBC's Murder in Mind series. Two of his books, The Stretch and The Bombmaker, were made into movies.
Stephen Leather was a journalist for more than ten years on newspapers such as The Times, the Daily Mail and the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong. His bestsellers have been translated into more than ten languages. He has also written for television shows such as London's Burning, The Knock and the BBC's Murder in Mind series. For much of 2011 his self-published eBooks - including The Bestseller, The Basement, Once Bitten and Dreamer's Cat - dominated the UK eBook bestseller lists and sold more than half a million copies. The Basement topped the Kindle charts in the UK and the US, and in total he has sold more than two million eBooks. His bestselling book The Chinaman was filmed as The Foreigner, starring Jackie Chan and Pierce Brosnan and grossing more than $100 million.
So I bought this as it was nice and cheap on the kindle store, the premise sounded intriguing and there seems to be a lot of 'buzz' around this author especially amongst the UK Kindle owning community.
Being written for the kindle market it sort of equated to short novella length maybe 150-ish pages. Perfect for curling up with on a Saturday for a couple of hours after finishing far heavier material. Which is exactly what I did.
The story is quite simple. Professor Dudley Grose (with a failing career as a once briefly famous writer) is teaching a creative writing course in New York. Throughout the book, he becomes increasingly concerned about a student, Adrain Slater, who has no interest in writing a great work of fiction; merely in becoming rich and famous by writing a bestseller. And his plan to do this? Simple, his book is written supposedly from the point of view of a psychopath who is in the creative writing class and is planning to kill of the students on the course for the sake of his book. Grose quickly develops suspicions that Slater does actually plan to go through with this and spends much of the book battling ith the police and the university administration to take this threat seriously. Slater also develops a friendship with Jenny, one of Grose’s students and Grose fears she may become his target. There is, of course, a couple of nice little twists at the end to pull the whole book together.
All in all, the book and the writing are good. Leather has the ability to reel you in to the story and the action and has a way of describing things so you almost feel like you are there. Certainly I can see why he’s so popular and why his books seem to always make their way up to the top of the most popular lists for Kindle books. The next time I’m in the mood for a quick escapist read I can see me downloading one of his books again. Unfortunately, for me, where this book lost stars was with the huge focus on the ebook/kindle phenomena and what felt like almost constant kindle product placement. I get that we kindle owners can be a gushy enthusiastic lot and that the author was trying to make a point about some of the changes to publishing and book buying trends but really it just distracted from the story and zapped the momentum a little bit. But complaint aside, the story and the writing were good and I’d recommend it for a quick read.
Wannabee author Adrian Slater attends creative writing classes and reveals to the class he intends to commit a murder so he can have a factual basis for his novel.
Stephen Leather has come up with another engrossing thriller that at around 53,000 words provides an absorbing journey to an unexpected destination. Readers may think they have worked out the ending before reaching the climax but as they read on, the story takes a final twist - but you'll have to read the story to find out what happens!
His offerings have ranged from the short very gentle Inspector Zhang locked room mysteries; the excellent Dan (Spider) Shepherd series; the Jack Nightingale occult detective series through to the hard biting novellas specifically written as ebooks 'The Basement' and 'Once Bitten'. Those who found that for them 'The Basement' was a tad on the gory side will find 'The Bestseller' does not come into the same category; nor are there any vampires - I simply found 'The Bestseller' an excellent fast-paced thriller and would heartily recommend it.
The author has embraced the ebook market with fortitude and has managed to completely lasso the attention of a massive number of readers. His resilience, grit and varied style have kept his ebooks at the top of the Kindle bestseller lists since before Christmas 2010. His knack of penning a thrilling read from almost any scenario is indicative of his astounding talent and no doubt 'The Bestseller' will be well........a bestseller!
As a well established very successful mainstream author long before the surge in ebook popularity Stephen Leather was able to set the benchmark in what readers should expect from ebooks and did not come up wanting. In fact, from within his range of titles there is something capable of pandering to everyone's taste within the crime/thriller genre.
Hardly surprising then, that his latest offering 'The Bestseller' offers excellent insights into the world of epublishing. The formatting and flow of the text is excellent with noticeably absent typos - something which can be a problem with some ebooks.
This author makes writing and producing ebooks appear completely easy peasy lemon squeazy!
'The Bestseller' is my fourth book by Stephen Leather, and I really enjoyed it.
Yes he does 'evangelise' about the Kindle and Amazon, but I'm sure he did it with his tongue firmly placed in his cheek. He is one of the few authors of the moment who seems to be quite happy poking fun at himself, and I couldn't help but chuckle as one of SL's characters complained about the quality and quantity of vampire novels being published at the moment (SL wrote 'Once Bitten' a vampire novel). The same character was also less than kind about authors who 'self-publish', something SL does with great success in the UK. The thing I particularly like about SL's books, (and 'The Bestseller' is no exception), is that he does not seem to write to a particular formula. Many of his characters are not particularly likeable, and most are flawed. SL writes in an uncomplicated, fast paced style that is uncluttered with superfluous adjectives or adverbs, which makes for an easy read.
I'm not saying that 'The Bestseller' is the best book I have ever read, but it is definitely worth a read, if only a sample. You never know, you may like it! I know I do.
It was the tale of a man willing to murder to write his Bestseller. Or maybe a maniac using a book to cover up his psychopathic tendencies. Or maybe a very talented and imaginative writer.
The twist at the end was one I didn't see coming, as they often are in Stephen Leather's work. It was well structured, and a quick, enjoyable read. There were a couple of times I laughed out loud, and was worried my neighbours heard my cackling.
I'm glad that I don't have to do courses like 'How to write the Bestseller' at uni - I wouldn't be able to attend without a chill creeping down my spine.
I feel like the only thing that had stopped the time spent reading this book being a waste of a couple of hours is that it's so easy to read, I was able to read it while I was exercising on a treadmill.
I bought this in the early days of my Kindle ownership, but being an incredibly disorganised book-reader, it's only just found itself at the top of my to-be-read "pile". Perhaps I would have enjoyed it more 6 years ago, but now, it seems too " of its time" (yes, already!) I've read this at a time when sales of paper books have increased, and sales of eBook readers and eBooks have decreased. So the constant comments throughout the book about how eBooks are the future makes it already very dated.
And that whole concept within the book, the shiny new eBook/Slater vs "dead tree book"/Grose, makes it difficult to know if the author is being ironic in this book. Virtually every downside of eBooks and self-publishing expressed by Grose are here, in this book. It reads as if chunks of it have been accidentally deleted. I read some bits and found myself looking back through the last couple of chapters to find out where and how I'd missed some essential plot device, when actually I hadn't missed anything, it really had just been dumped in suddenly.
One of the students in Grose's class apologises when he reads out his work in progress because he realises he has repeated himself several times, and following this there are a couple of conversations alluding to repetition. Ironically, the author repeats himself several times in this book. I thought I'd inadvertently skipped back a chapter on a couple of occasions!
The first chapter of the book reads as if it is from a completely separate work until the moment you know Slater has a boat. From that moment, you pretty much know where the book is heading, apart perhaps from the eventual reappearance of Kirsty, for a pretty lame twist.
There's not a single character in this book with which a reader can empathise. You do not have to like a character to enjoy a book - I've read plenty of books where the characters have been vile creatures, but the writing has been strong enough to still make the reader care what happens to them. I didn't care about the outcome of any of the characters in The Bestseller.
If this book is meant as irony, then it does its job well.
If it's not ironic, then it's done its job very badly.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
However, I was troubled by the sheer implausibility that the New York police wouldn't have quickly linked up their boat owning criminal suspect to his earlier crimes in Los Angeles and that it was only the LA victim in the end who made the connection, and got "justice."
His fingerprints were surely taken by the LA police and would have matched the ones that would have been taken by the New York police the moment he was arrested if not earlier.
Why would he keep the same boat in NY that was the site of his earlier crime in LA? That too would lead any diligent investigation to track him down.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
3 1/2 stars. Interesting premise but really... Writing is supposed to reflect personal experiences but when it comes to thrillers and crime writing, hopefully the mind of a killer isn't the author. I felt the college lecturer reacted to his student's writing too radically, but in this case, fir good reason. Definitely had the twists. Another story where most of the characters are not that likeable... and poor, poor Jenny.
Fast paced easy to read thriller Story had a couple of good twists that admittedly I did guess but that is probably down to me reading so many similar stories over the years
Read mainly as trying to get to kindle books which have been bought and left unread for years.
Definitely recommend though as a good holiday read
An excellent story that kept me guessing. I only read this originally because I enjoyed another of his books, 'Private Dancer ', so much. Will definitely look to Stephen Leather for future reads
Stephen Leather never disappoints. While not blowing your mind away, he keeps the story moving along at a respectable pace, and always has a sting in the tale. As always, will be reading more of his work.
I love the twists and turns in this book. I loathed Adrian Slater and the way he manipulates everyone. The story is gripping and I couldn't out the book down.
'The Bestseller' is the story of an university lecturer who becomes convinced that one of his creative writing students is plotting to kill someone and write about it.
I found this a fast-paced and thrilling read. It's cleverly written - Leather brings one of his other books into the story and one character admits that while it's a brilliant book, none of the characters were likeable in any way. The same could easily be said of this book. It's a gripping read and the suspenseful story kept me turning pages, but while the characters were interesting and believable in their own ways, none of them were the slightest bit likeable. I don't always finish books if I don't like the characters but there was no way I was putting this down until I found out what was going to happen!
The story is well plotted and moves along at a fast, thrilling pace. I read it fairly quickly in one sitting, trying to work out how it was all going to end. I thought I had it figured out towards the end, but there is a really good, unpredictable twist in there which made it an even more satisfying read. This is the second of Leather's books that I've read and I will definitely be reading more of them.
Overall this is a brilliantly suspenseful, fast-paced book. Highly recommended reading for fans of thrillers!
The story is set around a creative writing course. I'm on a creative writing course, so was intrigued enough to read this. The story is good and I liked the characterisation, but was disappointed by the ending. What really irritated me was the constant 'evangelising' about the Kindle. I love my kindle and enjoy seeing it mentioned in a story, however this came across as a very unsubtle 'product placement', along with a couple of very big plugs for Amazon. A couple of mentions of the kindle and e-readers would have been fine, but the story was spoilt by the clumsy over-enthusiasm and repetitive praise given by the author. I have not read any Stephen Leather stories before but have had 'The Basement' on my kindle to read for a while. There appeared to be some very unsubtle 'plugs' for a story called 'The Basement' mentioned several times as well. In all, the story was good, but spoilt by some very unimaginative promotions.
I had an interesting reply from Mr. Leather to my review on Amazon!
While this was a really good, faced paced read I had it figured out before the end. Though there were times when I second guessed my theory. I liked the flow of the book and the way he manipulated the characters. Stephen Leather is a good writer but really needs to work on editing his novels before self publishing them with Kindle. There were a few quite noticeable mistakes that distract from the story.
A stand alone novel by Stephen Leather that is definitely a page turner.Started the book late in the day and so engrossed was I that I stayed up into the early hours of the morning to finish it. If you have not read any Stephen Leather books I do recommend that you perhaps try some which are normally so well priced on Amazon. His novels are fast paced and very entertaining and this one was no exception.
Read this e book in a couple of hours. Fairly engrossing but not a satisfyig read-maybe because it had no redeeming characters at all. The ineffectual and frustrated (or is that frustrated) Dr Grose, his silly ,gullible girlfriend , the creepy boatowner/creative writing student and the hapless cops were almost equally repulsive. But still a good old who dunnit with a twist.
I finished this in under 24 hours, as I found the plot very compelling and the novella easy to read. I am unsure if I found the references to Leather's other work 'The Basement' conceited or clever, but I must admit that I fell into the trap of enjoying The Bestseller, and buying The Basement straight away.
I can't decide if I like this author or not. This wasn't bad but I've read better stories by him.
This lost a star because of the endless discussions of the merits of real vs ebooks. ok, it's set in a writing class but going over that issue just got very annoying.
The dialogue seemed to British for the setting. The basic plot is fine but overall very similar to The Basement.
Enjoyed the book very much. Stephen Leather creates characters who I can visualise. His writing seems deceptively simple but everything is there, no need to go back and check on details. The plot was good, the characters very good, and as always the twist and mystery is there right to the end.
This is the second book I've read by this author and have really enjoyed both. They are only available on e-readers. I like the twists and turns in the book and that it keeps you guessing until the end. I look forward to reading more.
Good idea but badly written. Author spends a lot of time recommending kindle books and even outlines his next book as a character and has other characters review it as awesome... ridiculous! End was strange too.
A fast gripping novel, though its seemed more like a short story that seemed to advertise kindle as well. You wont have complaints if you just want a good fast read.