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DON'T LOOK DOWN
Set in a wintry Germany, DON'T LOOK DOWN is a fast-paced thriller that grabs you by the throat and doesn't let go until the icy denouement in a cave high in a hillside.
When Lauren Keane is kidnapped during a winter break in Nuremberg, she doesn't take it personally. The kidnappers have, after all, mistaken her for her friend Katti. When she finds a dead Albanian cleaning woman in her shower, however, she figures it's time to fight back. Especially as she is now in the frame for the murder.
Along with Wolf, her ex, who's now engaged to the frigid Ingrid, and Gunther, an undercover-or-is-he?-policeman, Lauren sets about trying to find the vanished Katti, nail a bunch of sex-traffickers and discover why the cleaner was brutally murdered.
Not that she delights in putting herself in danger but, if she's ever going to get the chance to buy her presents at the Nuremberg Christmas market, she's going to have to get the mess sorted out somehow.
When Lauren Keane is kidnapped during a winter break in Nuremberg, she doesn't take it personally. The kidnappers have, after all, mistaken her for her friend Katti. When she finds a dead Albanian cleaning woman in her shower, however, she figures it's time to fight back. Especially as she is now in the frame for the murder.
Along with Wolf, her ex, who's now engaged to the frigid Ingrid, and Gunther, an undercover-or-is-he?-policeman, Lauren sets about trying to find the vanished Katti, nail a bunch of sex-traffickers and discover why the cleaner was brutally murdered.
Not that she delights in putting herself in danger but, if she's ever going to get the chance to buy her presents at the Nuremberg Christmas market, she's going to have to get the mess sorted out somehow.
299 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 27, 2011
11 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
March 31, 2012
I whizzed through this and stayed up late just to finish it. Talk about pacey! Right from the beginning, we’re in fifth gear and there’s no slowing down.
Lauren Keane arrives in Nuremberg to visit her old friend Katti. But Katti’s gone missing and Lauren hurtles into a full-speed adventure of chases and kidnappings, a romantic blast from the past and a complex history of revenge and profiteering. Without giving too much away, several characters are not what they seem and loyalties are stretched to snapping point.
Maintaining the breakneck pace of this book is no mean feat, but the author pulls it off with apparent ease. I actually dropped my Kindle into a pot of chilli as I just couldn’t put this book down, not even to make dinner.
It’s an ingenious idea to start the story with an extract from the incredibly tense dénouement, so that when the reader arrives at that point, it feels like you’re having a recurrent nightmare and the sense of dread is intensified.
I found the use of a wintry Nuremberg a fascinating backdrop to the events. The weather adds an edge of tension all its own and the detail of city walls, icy caves and Christmas markets provoked me to add the city to my list of ‘must visits’.
Another thing I particularly admired is the way she handles the nasty stuff. Books with excessively graphic violence, especially against women, switch me off. But Scott Emmett manages to crank up a real and terrifying sense of menace, without dwelling on brutality. Hats off.
Highly recommended, but don’t plan to get anything else done once you’ve started reading. Especially cooking chilli.
Lauren Keane arrives in Nuremberg to visit her old friend Katti. But Katti’s gone missing and Lauren hurtles into a full-speed adventure of chases and kidnappings, a romantic blast from the past and a complex history of revenge and profiteering. Without giving too much away, several characters are not what they seem and loyalties are stretched to snapping point.
Maintaining the breakneck pace of this book is no mean feat, but the author pulls it off with apparent ease. I actually dropped my Kindle into a pot of chilli as I just couldn’t put this book down, not even to make dinner.
It’s an ingenious idea to start the story with an extract from the incredibly tense dénouement, so that when the reader arrives at that point, it feels like you’re having a recurrent nightmare and the sense of dread is intensified.
I found the use of a wintry Nuremberg a fascinating backdrop to the events. The weather adds an edge of tension all its own and the detail of city walls, icy caves and Christmas markets provoked me to add the city to my list of ‘must visits’.
Another thing I particularly admired is the way she handles the nasty stuff. Books with excessively graphic violence, especially against women, switch me off. But Scott Emmett manages to crank up a real and terrifying sense of menace, without dwelling on brutality. Hats off.
Highly recommended, but don’t plan to get anything else done once you’ve started reading. Especially cooking chilli.
April 24, 2012
Don’t Look Down opens with a scene which is only resolved at the end of the novel, giving us an immediate hook. We have to keep reading to find who, what and why.
Lauren Keane flies to Germany to visit an old friend, Katti Hauer. But Katti is missing and her brother, Wolf, with whom Lauren shares a past blighted by a broken love affair, meets Lauren’s flight in Katti’s place. Lauren and Katti look very much alike, especially when Lauren is wearing Katti’s clothes. As a result, she is mistaken for Katti and kidnapped in her place. Lauren must fight for her life and sanity, while also trying to find and save her missing friend.
The plot has many layers, leaving Lauren not knowing who is friend and who is foe. Revenge, the sex trade, drugs and people trafficking all combine to give us a complex plot and plenty of reasons for the characters to produce twist after twist.
The story is set against a bitter winter backdrop and Scott-Emmett brings Nuremberg and the surrounding area vividly to life. From the moment the heroine, Lauren Keane, leaves the airport on her arrival the settings are flawless. Not once did the descriptions of town and country feel intrusive, they simply added depth to the storytelling.
The characterisation is good and the hero, Wolf Hauer, is gorgeous enough for fall for, but not so overwhelmingly handsome that he doesn’t seem real. Let’s put it this way, I wouldn’t mind riding pillion on his bike as Lauren does at the beginning of the novel.
The book was marred (very) slightly for me by guessing correctly early on who the mole was, but this didn’t spoil my overall enjoyment of what was a very entertaining read.
Lauren Keane flies to Germany to visit an old friend, Katti Hauer. But Katti is missing and her brother, Wolf, with whom Lauren shares a past blighted by a broken love affair, meets Lauren’s flight in Katti’s place. Lauren and Katti look very much alike, especially when Lauren is wearing Katti’s clothes. As a result, she is mistaken for Katti and kidnapped in her place. Lauren must fight for her life and sanity, while also trying to find and save her missing friend.
The plot has many layers, leaving Lauren not knowing who is friend and who is foe. Revenge, the sex trade, drugs and people trafficking all combine to give us a complex plot and plenty of reasons for the characters to produce twist after twist.
The story is set against a bitter winter backdrop and Scott-Emmett brings Nuremberg and the surrounding area vividly to life. From the moment the heroine, Lauren Keane, leaves the airport on her arrival the settings are flawless. Not once did the descriptions of town and country feel intrusive, they simply added depth to the storytelling.
The characterisation is good and the hero, Wolf Hauer, is gorgeous enough for fall for, but not so overwhelmingly handsome that he doesn’t seem real. Let’s put it this way, I wouldn’t mind riding pillion on his bike as Lauren does at the beginning of the novel.
The book was marred (very) slightly for me by guessing correctly early on who the mole was, but this didn’t spoil my overall enjoyment of what was a very entertaining read.
April 15, 2012
This is a great book in every respect. The book is well written, it absorbs you in fact. The characters are well developed and the setting is good.
The tension is slowly built up and almost explodes at the climax. What also is appealing, is the way in which bits of information are given about "the other side" in small chapters. But this is done in a clever way. These chapters do never reveal completely who is who. One may guess, but the real (surprising) solution is only given at the end. Barbara Scott Emmett is a gifted author. I certainly can recommend this book to everybody who loves a good thriller.
The tension is slowly built up and almost explodes at the climax. What also is appealing, is the way in which bits of information are given about "the other side" in small chapters. But this is done in a clever way. These chapters do never reveal completely who is who. One may guess, but the real (surprising) solution is only given at the end. Barbara Scott Emmett is a gifted author. I certainly can recommend this book to everybody who loves a good thriller.
September 22, 2020
** spoiler alert **
Este es un libro realmente entretenido.
Realmente te mantiene interesado casi hasta el final.
Está escrito en un formato que mantiene al lector en constante incertidumbre.
El problema es que hay demasiados momentos tipo "Scooby Doo" donde los "malos" son unos completos inútiles que no consiguen atrapar a una niña. Por ejemplo: la misma Ingrid -la mala escondida a la vista de todos- le dice a Lauren que todo es culpa de ella, ya que si no hubiera interferido todo habría estado bien.
Otra cosa que irrita es la misma Lauren, que es el típico personaje de la película de terror del que no puedes creer que haga tantas tonterías.
La primera vez que fue secuestrada (el absurdo de los secuestros más adelante), perdió el celular y las identificaciones, sólo que despúes de esa vez Wolf lo recupera y nunca más se le ocurrió llevarlo consigo -convenientemente para la historia, claro.
A respecto de los secuestros: todos ellos fueron totalmente caricaturescos, ya el lector sabía que al comienzo del libro alguna cosa sucedería para que Lauren saliera de esa situación, pero ya sabiendo del involucramiento de Kristo por medio de Alina en el asunto aún así regresó al departamento de Wolf y prácticamente esperó sentada a que volvieran por ella.
Al final del libro tenemos la típica pelea en la que los caricaturescos villanos no se ponen de acuerdo entre ellos, se tardan demasiado en eliminar a los protagonistas y acaban -de forma nada sorpresiva- muertos.
En fin, sí recomiendo el libro al público en general, es una lectura excelente para un fin de semana de frío o de gripe o en un viaje. Sin embargo, si es una persona que detesta todo tipo de clichés, este no es para usted.
Este es un libro realmente entretenido.
Realmente te mantiene interesado casi hasta el final.
Está escrito en un formato que mantiene al lector en constante incertidumbre.
El problema es que hay demasiados momentos tipo "Scooby Doo" donde los "malos" son unos completos inútiles que no consiguen atrapar a una niña. Por ejemplo: la misma Ingrid -la mala escondida a la vista de todos- le dice a Lauren que todo es culpa de ella, ya que si no hubiera interferido todo habría estado bien.
Otra cosa que irrita es la misma Lauren, que es el típico personaje de la película de terror del que no puedes creer que haga tantas tonterías.
La primera vez que fue secuestrada (el absurdo de los secuestros más adelante), perdió el celular y las identificaciones, sólo que despúes de esa vez Wolf lo recupera y nunca más se le ocurrió llevarlo consigo -convenientemente para la historia, claro.
A respecto de los secuestros: todos ellos fueron totalmente caricaturescos, ya el lector sabía que al comienzo del libro alguna cosa sucedería para que Lauren saliera de esa situación, pero ya sabiendo del involucramiento de Kristo por medio de Alina en el asunto aún así regresó al departamento de Wolf y prácticamente esperó sentada a que volvieran por ella.
Al final del libro tenemos la típica pelea en la que los caricaturescos villanos no se ponen de acuerdo entre ellos, se tardan demasiado en eliminar a los protagonistas y acaban -de forma nada sorpresiva- muertos.
En fin, sí recomiendo el libro al público en general, es una lectura excelente para un fin de semana de frío o de gripe o en un viaje. Sin embargo, si es una persona que detesta todo tipo de clichés, este no es para usted.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews