Book Review: VICIOUS by Kevin O'Brien

I have discovered a great new thriller writer, one who annoyingly keeps me up all night, relentlessly turning the pages. Here's a taste of my review of Kevin O'Brien's latest, Vicious, at Dark Scribe Magazine:

"...Although it’s being marketed as a thriller, Kevin O’Brien’s latest Seattle-set chiller would be more appropriately classified as a horror novel. It’s in the same true-life vein as, say, a horror novel by Jack Ketchum or a movie like Last House on the Left or The Strangers. It’s the scariest kind of horror, because it could really happen.

I say the above because Vicious is a book that defies convention as a thriller in the same vein as Harlan Coben or Lynwood Barclay. Vicious, unlike most books in the thriller genre, is all about the villain (or villains) and the victims. O’Brien spends very little time on police procedure or even amateur investigators getting to the bottom of crime. Most books classified as thrillers make the detection of the principle crime the heart of the work. Vicious brings us brilliantly into the mind of a very sick and twisted killer – dubbed by the press as the “Mama’s boy Killer” because he kills only the mothers of young children – and his victims..."

Read the entire review here. Click on the Amazon link at left to get your own copy of Vicious.