Reviewed
by: Sam Waite
Genre:
Mystery/Suspense
Approximate
word count: 90-95,000
words
Availability
Click
on a YES above to go to appropriate page in Amazon, Barnes &
Noble, or Smashwords store
Author:
Sharlene
Almond is “an author of historical/21st century psychological,
international thrillers.”
For
more, visit Ms. Almond's blog.
Description:
Parallel
stories are told of modern day serial murders and those associated
with Jack the Ripper.
Appraisal:
Initiated
to Kill is an unimaginative rehash of Jack the Ripper crimes with
a tired sub plot of a Freemason conspiracy to control the world.
The
narrative skips among three time periods, including depictions of the
original Ripper murders, modern-day parallels and flashbacks to the
heroine’s childhood. The story alternates point of view with
sections belonging to the heroine in first person. First person is
given to other characters as well, adding confusion to an already
poorly constructed story.
For
gore aficionados, there are human hearts delivered in wrapped
packages to police and detailed slicing up of murder victims, along
with rape and torture. Nevertheless, the greatest horror of Initiated
to Kill is its butchery of English prose.
*
Spelling:
“I’m afraid we don’t have any
definitive news on Celestina, per say.
“Per se”
“…whose-who…”
“Who’s who.”
*
Grammar:
“His thrusts came quick and deep,
gripping onto her buttocks.”
Did his thrusts really grip her
bottom?
“His wife was much older than
him,…”
Should be he. Errors of objective
and nomative case abound.
*
Punctuation:
“Her eyes widened, she tried to
struggle; her breathing in rapid bursts.”
Semicolons are used extensively in
the narrative, often incorrectly. In this example, the semi does not
join two complete sentences.
*
Diction:
“The immaculately gardens and land
bespoke of the hard-working staff he employed.”
“Bespoke” means tailor made.
“Immaculately” is an adverb used here as an adjective.
“Eyes averted his openly intense
stare.”
“Avoided,” not “averted.”
“…the blooming orange trees
crammed with the bright orange fruits…”
“Cram” means to force something
into a confined space. It doesn’t describe a tree loaded with
fruit.
“When her parents rung me…”
The simple past tense of “ring”
is “rang.” “Rung” is a past participle.”
“The tension was plausible.”
The tension may have been
believable, but I doubt it’s what the writer intended. Perhaps
palpable?
“The train ambled…”
Amble means to walk slowly.
*
Factual errors:
“…hanging ferns sprouting into
bloom.”
Ferns don’t bloom.
“Duck, peacocks and swans swam
leisurely on the still waters.”
Peacocks don’t swim. Also number,
singular/plural should be consistent.
*
Wooden dialog:
“It’s actually a family
heirloom. Since I’m the only one that wanted to live in
Spain, they said I could have it.” His sophisticated English accent
only added to the allure of his overall demeanor.
One would expect a sophisticated
speaker to use “who” rather than “that.”
“Uh, uh sir...well...a package was
delivered at the desk...and well uh, it’s addressed for the CID
division.”
*
Faulty logic:
“The little boy remembered how
Charles Dickens spoke of a similar ordeal.”
The boy, later described as five
years old, recalls Dickens and relates the memory to his own
circumstance.
“Valero tightly gripped his
paddles (He is in a rowboat, so he grips oars not paddles), sculling
back and forwards.”
The boat would go nowhere. A rower
would scull in one direction and feather the oars in the other. Also,
“back and forth” or “backwards and forwards,” please.
“Rubbing his hands on a weeks old
stubble, reminded him he should have shaved this morning.”
Weeks without shaving would produce
more than stubble.
*
Simple bad writing:
“Drying off, he meticulously
picked out the clothes he would wear that day. Aligning his shirt,
pants, underwear, socks and shoes. Carefully putting each garment on,
each time smoothing out invisible wrinkles. Moving towards his
bedside table, he went to put that treasured object on.”
“Aligning…” and “Carefully…”
are not sentences. That awful structure is used purposefully throughout the novel. If wrinkles are invisible, are they wrinkles? What is
there to smooth out?
“Paint flaking off the walls,
sprawling of inherent descriptions lining available waiting space.”
I can’t guess what that means.
“Hastily they covered her, not
noticing a pool of dark liquid, racing to find the nearest
constable.”
Blood racing to find a constable?
*
Style inconsistencies:
“Her model-like height of 5’8
accentuated her thin frame…”
“The way she held her five-four
inch frame.” We also need the word “foot” after five.
*Aside
for history buffs:
“This place is filled with
cultural influences imbedded (embedded is preferred spelling) from
history. The Baths of Lady Maria de Padilla are rainwater tanks.
These tanks were named after Maria de Padilla, mistress of Pedro the
Cruel. He supposedly killed her husband, but she refused his advances
and poured boiling oil over her face so that Pedro would not want
her. She became a nun and is a symbol for purity in Seville.”
The passage describes the legend
of Maria de Padilla, not the history. She bore at least four
children sired by Pedro and whose names are recorded in history.
According to the front matter, the
novel was edited by Jeremy Tyler, who bears at least equal
responsibility for the multitude of mistakes and a style that
embraces inane disregard for grammar. Ultimately, the fault of
offering such shoddy work for sale to the public lies with the
publisher Whiskey Creek Press.
FYI:
My
examples of errors may seem exhaustive, but they scarcely begin to
describe the problems with this novel.
Format/Typo
Issues:
There
are many misspellings, words missing, and unwanted words left in
sentences.
“He
believed he was a god, that’s why I suspect is why they chose him.”
This
is also a run-on sentence.
Rating:
* One Star
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