Dead Pretty

by Roger Granelli

Mark Richards, having rebuilt his life after a traumatic, deprived past, is a private investigator in London. When his beautiful girlfriend, Lena, is brutally and sadistically slain his life is turned upside down. In his search for her killers, he becomes hunter and hunted, exacting revenge whilst trying to stay alive. His quest turns into a bloody rites of passage, which takes him from London to the Midlands, to the hills of south Wales, and, ultimately, to Amsterdam, where the savage climax of the book is played out amidst the seedy back alleys of the red light district. "Dead Pretty" is fast moving, full of dramatic set pieces, a murderous journey with a twist in its tail. Mark Richards finds out more than he ever wanted to know, old demons rear up again in his mind, and he has to reach deep into his soul to survive.

202 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 15, 2009

Reviews

[Jack · Rating 3 out of 5]

Adventure story featuring a reformed small time villain who gets into trouble with the big guys. A somewhat depressing story where only violence solves anything.

[Mark · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mark Richards is a private investigator, a Valley kid from the estates whose brother was kidnapped as a child, a disappearance never solved. A loner, he’s brought out of his shell by Lena, his model-girlfriend who is equally closed off. Coming home from a job, he finds her butchered on their bed and sets out to find who killed her and why. The book opens well and Granelli captures Richards mindset superbly, writing the anger so well that it almost seethes on the page. Then something happens, as if perhaps he realised he still had a lot of book left and everything goes downhill from there. There’s a lot of repetition in those early chapters - of the lead characters early life - and I hoped that would fade but it actually gets worse as the book goes on, as if Granelli and his editors were afraid the reader might forget the cast list. This isn’t helped by broad-brush characterisation with only Richards having any real depth (there is an attempt, two-thirds of the way through, to follow the story of Richards’ Mum and her new boyfriend but it feels tacked on) and there’s a lot of POV jumping - sometimes in the space of a sentence - so it’s occasionally difficult to know who’s talking or doing a certain thing. Speaking of characters, Granelli makes an interesting choice (meaning I’m not sure if it’s deliberate in a book that’s otherwise peopled entirely by heterosexuals) in that both of the main baddies - the London gangland boss and the sadistic enforcer based in Amsterdam - are gay, with a particular liking for young men and that feels lazy and unnecessary (though it does lead to one of the quickest endings to a book I’ve read in a long time). On top of this there’s a distracting problem with the technical side (a fault which also plagued “I Was Waiting For You”, from the same publisher) that I assume is down to the editorial input, with quite a few sentences having repeat words in them, giving it an amateurish feel. This is made worse by a bad habit of jumping forward slightly in a chapter, for dramatic purposes but then, in the next chapter, going back to show what we missed before. Of course, this just stops the momentum dead and makes the reader wish he’d picked up another book to read. Overall, this is a poorly edited story that would probably work better at novella length and, as such, it’s hard to recommend this.

[Cheryl M-M · Rating 3 out of 5]

Crime without the usual flowery descriptions and drawn out scenes. This is just boom-boom-boom from one scenario to another in a noir gritty like way.
I thought it was too flighty and shallow for my taste. Not enough seriousness in the gritty or darkness in the noir.
The writing style was distinctive. Long drawn out paragraghs made it hard to follow sometimes.
I have to say it just didn't tick the boxes for me. I found it very B-movie like and felt it lacked any real depth or emotion. I am not sure why the sub-plot of the brother was made into such a major item, as it had nothing at all to do with the story. Every time the baby brother was brought up it felt as if there would be some kind of hint or revelation, instead what was supposed to be an indicator of the mother and son guilt racked relationship fell flat.

[Donna · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really gritty thriller which grabs you by the throat from the onset. The protagonist, Mark Richards, is a ballsy guy with a dark past. He has isolated himself from this past but when he comes home to find his eastern European girlfriend has been butchered in his own home, he has to act fast. A real page turner with a central character that I am interesting in reading more about.

[Margaret · Rating 1 out of 5]

I gave up on this because it's poorly written & indescribably boring. he uses some really peculiar turns of phrase - smelling her tired hair; someone has a 'well-modelled' voice - I kept having to go back & re-read lines or phrases to try & make sense of them.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gripping - an excellent read with well-developed characters. Loved the ending!

[Smooth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really good, loved the ending.