Review of Vengeance in Stilletos

[Wy_Bertram]

[Following is an official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Vengeance in Stilletos" by Charles Alexander.]

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3 out of 4 stars

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A sixteen-year-old French girl’s arrival in the United States sets off a chain of events that end with several unexplained deaths. Looking for answers concerning her daughter, the mother of the catalyst traces her steps to America, only to be immediately framed for murder. A plea from an old friend sets Annie Steele on the case, but the mystery only becomes more convoluted as the list of suspects and casualties grows longer and the crime scene extends into other countries. Annie Steele has a reputation for facing off against incredible odds and emerging victorious, but this might be the most formidable foe she has had to deal with yet.

Vengeance in Stilletos is a fast-paced action thriller by Charles Alexander, an instalment in the Annie Steele series which follows the fierce detective along one of the author’s most complex mysteries yet.

Charles Alexander’s writing style, while simple and enjoyable in itself, was not without flaws in this book. The most glaring issue would be the unmistakable leer of the male gaze which seemed to seep out of every word the author used to describe certain female characters. And for a book with mostly female lead characters, these sensationalised physical descriptions were jarring and extremely unrealistic.

Another instance in this book that stood out to me was a portion of the dialogue that was indistinguishable from the narrative itself. The character’s breakdown of the day’s events was delivered with far too much detail and poetry, like a dramatic essay reading, giving the impression that at some point, someone slapped quotation marks at the terminals of a paragraph and decided to pass it off as dialogue. In general, the author excelled in the narrative portion of the writing but the dialogue usually left a little to be desired.

The final nail in the editing coffin would be the numerous, nearly imperceptible typographic errors that riddled the text. These were little mistakes like typing ‘Los Angles,’ instead of ‘Los Angeles’, and though some of these were good for a slight chuckle, these errors could have been easily spotted during proofreading, leading me to believe this book was not edited by a professional. In all, I immensely enjoyed the plot and characters of this novel, and though I look forward to reading more from the author, I hope he does a better job with editing or picking an editor. As such, my rating of Vengeance in Stilletos is three out of four stars. I recommend this book to readers who enjoy action thrillers, and plots with many twists. It needs a bit of work, but it is an incredibly entertaining read.

This work is intended only for a mature audience. Enjoy.

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Vengeance in Stilletos
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[Aisha Yakub]

The title of this book makes me think this is an interesting book, just like your review does.

[Amy Luman]

I don’t think I can handle the suggestive descriptions of female characters. Other than that this sounds like a good read.

[Ceeco2002]

Seems like an exciting read. Great review!

[Lynderella]

I would love to read this book just because of the title. Thank you for the great review. This would definitely be on my list of books to read this year.