This review was posted yesterday on the Online Book Club Website
5 Stars
Brian O’Hare’s Dark Web Murders is as exceptionally thrilling as his initial three novels in his murder mysteries series. The plots are all incredibly diverse and imaginative, and O’Hare offers the perfect amount of detail for reader imagery, but not too much as to overwhelm the readers. The 11:05 Murders, I will say, contains the least amount gore among the works, but they are all written with a tasteful amount of detail.Dark Web Murders plays on religion enough that I should mention it, but it is nothing compared to the Satanist characters involved his last work The Coven Murders. The mention of religion is not obscene or repeated enough to cause anyone to overlook this piece of fiction on that basis alone. However, this work does, in its entirety, involve and revolve around sexual deviancy. Homosexuality is a major theme explored in the work, but nothing that should prevent readers leery of such topics from enjoying this literary puzzle. The sex crimes mentioned in this book, however, may be a red flag for those sensitive to rape, pedophilia, or abuse. As mentioned previously, O’Hare leaves much to the imagination while still painting a relatively good picture for his audience. Furthermore, the sadistic nature of O’Hare’s criminals is not for the faint-hearted, so this murder mystery series is definitely directed towards a mature audience of literary intellect privy to solving murder scenarios similar to those witnessed on famous crime shows such as CSI.Dark
Web Murders encompasses Chief
Inspector Jim Sheehan and his team as they work to uncover the identity of a
psychotic serial killer with an affinity for police truncheons. This thrilling
tale is unique to the previous novels in the series because the murderer leaves
the reader clues to solve the case in the form of blog posts on the dark web.
The imaginative nature of this novel leaves me in utter awe at O’Hare’s talent
as an author. This is the first novel in the series that I have come close to
solving before the intuitive Chief Sheehan, and I hope to finally beat him at
his own game in the next installment.
The characters develop even more in
this novel and we get a sneak peek into the romance of Tom and Denise, a
romance I enjoyed reading about in The 11:05 Murders. This book is strictly about the case,
so readers looking for a romantic side story may be misled by O’Hare’s second
installment of the series, but, with another addition to the series in the
works, there is no predicting where O’Hare decides to go next with his
well-written characters.
The aspect I like most about this book
is O’Hare’s consistency in initially giving a glimpse of a seemingly unrelated
crime that the audience is left to tie into the story. The idea to include
ciphering and codes in this novel was also exciting, and I was surprised that I
could not figure it out before the characters did! There were no aspects to
this novel that I disliked; while I would have enjoyed more character
development in Denise Stewart, I realize the intent of the series is focused on
the mind-boggling clues that the reader, along with Sheehan’s men, must
decipher.
Incredibly well edited, O’Hare creates
a seamless environment for the reader to be immersed, and I have come to
realize that starting one of his novels on a busy day is never a good idea
because I am never able to put it down! Once again, I have solved a murder in
just two days! If only results were that fast in real crime-fighting.
I rate Dark Web
Murders by Brian O’Hare
a 4/4 for providing
another amazing puzzle that never fails to baffle. The previous works of this series
have been phenomenal, so this novel had high expectations to meet. O’Hare has
once again knocked it out of the park! I should mention though, that the
Northern Ireland setting includes language that is unnatural to myself, being
an American, but this did not deter me in the slightest or hinder my reading
experience in the least. I recommend this book to all avid readers who enjoy a
puzzle just as much as they enjoy working with the detectives in realistic
fiction television series.
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