Title: I’ve Been Watching You by K A Richardson
Genre: Currently #2960 on Amazon Best Sellers Rank in Kindle eBooks, Mystery, Thriller & Suspense, Mystery, Police Procedurals
Publisher: Bloodhound Books
Publication Date: June 23, 2016
Source: Bloodhound Books and NetGalley
Title and Cover: I’ve Been Watching You (The Forensic Files Book 1) – Appropriate setting for subject
Ben Cassidy is a CSI with Sunderland City who is raising four-year-old daughter Grace by herself. She lives with Aunt Aoife who took her in as a child when her parents died in an accident. She has moved back home after living in Dunham and brings with her baggage she is yet to completely resolve. She must wrestle with the lingering psychological and physical damage while Aunt Aoife has a secret of her own.
Jacob Tully is ex-military with experience in combat and physical and mental trauma, but is coping by lecturing in Digital Forensics when Ben attends a class as part of her continuing education. He still wrestles with an occasional flashback or bout of PTSD, though has been making progress. The IUD damage to his leg will continue to cause him pain. Both are damaged individuals and seem destined to find each other.
When a local homicide involving a student is executed in a manner that Ben recognizes, it immediately causes horrific flashbacks of her own. But that’s not all…oh no, cause we have a parallel baddie out there who has a wife in a nursing facility as a result of his violence against her, both physical and mental. Unfortunately, he has a young boy at home, trying to raise him as he believes a **real** man should be raised. To all outward appearances, they look like a normal family, coping when she is sent to a long-term care facility. Meanwhile, he is crafting the end to his wife’s caregiver.
Author Richardson has taken on a violent subject and written her storyline from the viewpoint of the CSI’s rather than the police investigation or detectives usually assigned the case. In this case, both Ben and Jacob are closely associated and working with the police, making for a quasi-police procedural. This might well also border on a psych-thriller as it bounces back and forth between both antagonists as often as the protagonist, Ben, giving us insight into the mind of the two truly dangerously deranged psychopaths. Both perps are convinced of their superior intelligence and proceed with only the tiniest niggle that there might be some small piece of forensic evidence they might have overlooked.
The first perp has a manic habit of searching, following, and spying on his next victim until he is assured of the perfect time and place where he can quietly, sadistically fulfill his fantasies. He assures that he won’t leave his future victim alive as happened accidentally with Ben.
The book begins with a prologue of the scene that leaves Ben permanently scarred some eight years prior. It grabs attention and proceeds to feed you into her story at the same time as the reader is introduced to both antagonists and Jacob. The plot manages to hold interest while becoming more confusing and somewhat inconsistent. Female characters with male names, so many English slang terms, colloquialisms and vernacular (“headed back to the nick,” “crack on”…), awkward phrasing (“…using the wall behind him to support for his weight,” “I was stood on the landing,” “Always asks if I want milk getting.” Huh??), and typos.
The characters are not wholly fleshed and I had difficulty with Ben being a sympathetic character. The dialogue is awkward. The romance promoted between these two damaged characters did little to give me any warm fuzzies. Fortunately, there is not a lot of objectionable language and scenes are depicted sufficiently that your own imagination takes over and that’s bad enough. The conclusion came in as expected but then left you with a catastrophic cliff-hanging twist at the end that left you scratching your head and feeling cheated.
I was granted this download by the publisher and NetGalley and appreciated the opportunity to read and review. This might be recommended to those who enjoy dark, psychopathically involved police procedurals with heavy English slang. The blurb sounded interesting, albeit a little misleading. Sorry, I’ll not be reading another.
Rosepoint Publishing: Two of Five Stars 
The Author: K. A. Richardson (No author bio available.)
©2018 V Williams 
Rosepoint Publishing 
Aw. A pity you didn’t like it. Sounds very intense.
I had a co-worker named Aoife some years ago. Not an easy name to figure out the pronunciation if you’re not Irish!
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Guess looking at the other reviews I was expecting one thing and got another. The vernacular was difficult for me, but then, obviously had other problems tho I think her plot idea was good. And Aoife? Yes, difficult as well–pronounced phonetically….?
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Ee-fa
I would never have figured that out on my own. She always joked her name tag was useless 😄
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AH! Ee-fa! That’s interesting and u are right, I wouldn’t have either. Thanks!
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😂
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Those awkward sentences are how people might talk in some parts of Britain – especially the “I was stood” and the “want milk getting” – sort of local working-class dialect. I remember having a conversation with a budding author who used language like that in her book, claiming it’s authentic – which it is, to a degree. But it’s also wrong! And put me off, even as a Brit, so I can imagine how off-putting it would be for non-Brits. I think there’s a place for it in dialogue perhaps, but not in the main body of a text, and like any dialect, a little goes a long way… 🙂
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Thank you–I felt badly about it, kept stumbling over stuff. Thought with the number of English (and Irish) authors I’ve been reading I was used to the common things–spelling like kerb for curb and your adding u in o-r words–i.e., honour. But this was very awkward for me. Of course, we have many dialects as well. Sometimes to a Californian, a deep southern drawl seems like a whole nother language, and I have seen it included in books with that local flavor. You are right–a little goes a long way. Appreciate your understanding and comment. Thank you!
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I felt the same about one of her other books so I totally understand where you’re coming from. Sorry to hear this didn’t work for you though.
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Yes, thank you. FictionFan explained that most of what I found was a particular dialect, but there were a few other problems I objected to as well. Feel badly when I review as such–would rather just not review it at all–but needed it for my source. Still, I greatly appreciate your understanding as well.
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