Book Review: Killing Time by Jack Giles

This novel was supplied to me for free to provide an honest review.

ASIN: B01B89KJB6

Authors web site: Brokentrails

Genre: Western

Print Length: 124 pages

Plot synopsis: A classic revenge story.

Cover: A great cover that clearly explains the genre. Well done to the publishers, Endeavour Press

Review

It is in my nature to stop reading a book if I am not enjoying it (life is too short) and I must admit I soon gained the impression that I would not enjoy this novel. I found the first chapter rather rushed and the way the characters were introduced somewhat jarring. The first chapter is very short and is followed by a flashback; although it took me a few sentences to realise that I had been taken back in time. Having said all that I did continue reading and completed the book.

The main plot is a classic story of a gunslinger taking revenge on those who have killed one of his relatives. It is intertwined with subplots about a robbery and the relationships of the men within the gang of outlaws and a government agent. It was the story-line about the relationships that intrigued me and kept me engaged in the story, but it ended up not having much of an impact on the outcome.

I got a good sense of the main character, De’Ath, but the rest of the characters I found rather two dimensional and all I could imagine were faceless men in the standard cowboy get-up of jeans, checked shirt and hat, and of course holstered revolvers.

The narrative style was engaging and other than the early stages of the book flowed reasonably well, although the weak characterisation of support characters made it difficult for me to keep a handle on who was who, especially of the third tier characters.

When reading, I like to visualise the setting in which the story is being played out. In this one I did not have enough to allow me to get more than an ephemeral perception of where the action was taking place.

I love reading dialogue in novels – it has the potential to add a spellbinding component to the story and really help develop the characters. In this book this was not quite pulled off. There is nothing wrong with the conversations, they are just a bit flat.

As a self-published author I have a thing about editing. I know this book was released by a publisher, but some traditional publishers are getting a bit relaxed about the quality of their editing. I am pleased to say that this is not the case with this book. I did not spot any typos and the consistency within the story is good.

What do others think?

I wrote my review without looking at what others thought about the novel, but I thought I would have a look at how my rating of 2 stars compares with other reviewers. I believe this is important, because all reviews are very personal and the hard work of authors deserves balanced consideration. I looked at the reviews on Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com and Goodreads.com and only included those ratings that also had a verbal review.

At the time of writing there were five reviews on Amazon.co.uk and I was intrigued to see that all gave Killing Time full marks and generally recommend it highly. So, as I would expect, there are people out there who thoroughly enjoyed the book.

There were also five reviews on Amazon.com. These gave the book an average score of four stars, with 80% (4 out of 5) rating it 4 stars or above and one as three stars; also substantially better than my score.

Only one of the reviews on Goodreads.com was different from those on Amazon.com and the different reviewer gave Killing Time a rating of five stars.

So it appears that my review is on the more critical side than the others (apologies to Mr Giles) which only goes to prove that one man’s log is another man’s pillow!