Today’s team review is from Noelle. She blogs here https://saylingaway.wordpress.com
Noelle has been reading Stalking Gideon Cain by Kerry Denney
The author sent me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review from a member of Rosie’s Book Review Team.
Stalking Gideon Cain is by all accounts a thriller. It involves an all-knowing enemy seeking revenge for a perceived slight decades earlier and the subject of his enmity is a well-known mystery writer whose protagonists are fantastical female vigilantes.
After reading the first two chapters and thinking I had somehow descended into the world of Roger Rabbit, I had to investigate the author. Kerry Alan Denney, as I discovered, is an award-winning author who combines suspense, thriller, horror, scifi, fantasy, supernatural, and paranormal in his books, according to his author profile. This appears to be his first thriller. Since I’d never encountered his books before, knowing this was a help.
Gideon Cain, the protagonist in this latest book, thinks he is losing his mind. The femme fatales in the books from which he makes a good living – think Jessica Rabbit on steroids – are cartoonish in their sensuality and over-the-top appearance and begin to show up in Cain’s life, live and in person. The first encounter is intriguing and puzzling, but the second of these in-living-flesh characters tries to poison him on a flight home from a book-signing tour. He soon figures out that this is a cruel joke played by an implacable enemy who toys with, and not in a nice way, everyone to whom he turns for help.
With the exception of one policeman investigating Cain’s poisoning, his parents – talented and intellectually remote, and the couple who are his best friends, the people who help him are women – very much like the women in Gideon Cain’s books – gorgeous, talented, strong, and resourceful. A rather interesting twist.
The author also included a ghost, that of Cain’s wife who appears from time to time. He was deeply in love with her, but she abruptly left him without explanation when she was several months pregnant with his first child and suffering from cancer. He had searched for her but only knew of her death when her body is returned by her twin sister for her funeral. What happened to the child?
How will Cain manage to find and stop the madman who is stalking him and his friends and family, when his enemy is always two steps ahead and has created a substance that can kill at the touch of a button?
When I sat down to write this review, I faced a conundrum akin to Schrödinger’s cat. The premise is brilliant and intriguing and there was good tension. The book had enough twists and turns to keep me reading, and the death concoction that allowed the stalker to blow his victims up from the inside was evilly lovely. Many of the action scenes had me on the seat of my chair, and the author has a good handle on description. I could always envision the scene in detail.
On the other hand, there were some rather long sections that made me want to say “get on with it, already!” If your life and the lives of those around you is at stake, you don’t spend a lot of time rehashing the past and your feelings. There was one chapter written from Gideon Cain’s dog’s point of view which really threw me. Who knows what a dog thinks?
The several women helping Cain seek and eliminate the stalker also became a little tiresome in their perfect appearance, physical skills, and intellectual superiority. A great idea but too much of a good thing. I’m also not entranced by clichéd dialogue, which seems to be a masculine trait, and there was a lot. But again, if this a Roger Rabbit redux, the clichés fit.
So how to rate this strange (to me) book based on a rather brilliant concept? I think it will appeal to Denney’s fans and should definitely make some new ones.
What does a famous author do when the villains from his novels come to life . . . and try to kill him?
~~~
Bestselling author Gideon Cain is losing his mind. Everywhere he turns lately, the femme fatales from his psychological thrillers show up—live and in person. Are they actresses playing a cruel joke on him, figments of his increasingly terrifying delusions, or fantastical vigilantes sprung to life from the pages of his books? All he knows for certain is if he doesn’t find answers soon, he’s bound for the psych ward.
When one of his fictional antagonists poisons him on a flight home from a book-signing tour, he realizes that someone isn’t just messing with his mind—they’re trying to kill him.
Now he’s running for his life from an enemy with a weapon so deadly it can kill with the touch of a button. Only an enigmatic woman from his tragic past can help him discover the truth behind his adversary’s vendetta. And time is running out to stop the madman who is stalking Gideon Cain.
AmazonUK | AmazonUS due out May 21st.
Rosie Amber 
Thanks for your clear and comprehensive review, Noelle. The idea sounds fun, but I suspect I might have the same issues you point out. Thanks, Rosie!
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