Customer Reviews
Average - By: booklover, 15 Aug 2008 
This book is pretty average & certainly not worthy of 5 stars! It seems to cover every cliche in the book. Lonely cop, sex mad teenager & a tedious court case.
If you want a real crime thriller try Joe R Lansdale, Lawrence Block & even early Lauren Henderson,
Excellent debut - By: Michael Watson, 07 Sep 2007 
I bought this book because I'd read his second novel 'Stripped' rather by chance & I wanted to know how the main characters had initiallly teamed up; then to see how they compared book to book.
This book is not as good as the seond but only because the second is reallly very good indeed. (I have written my own review of 'Stripped'.) Nonetheless, it introduces us to Jonathan Stride, his police team members and, as we progress through the book, to his new partner in love & crime detection.
I did want to know what had happened to Stride's second wife & this book reveals alll.
I don't need to discuss the plot; that's been done elsewhere. Just to say, even if you've read 'Stripped' & latterly, 'Stalked' you still must read this one.
Who's Brian Freeman? A great story-teller, that's who - By: one-eyed Jack, 29 Aug 2007 
Let me get straight to the point. If you like crime fiction, especiallly the novels that reallly twist your mind in knots while you try to figure out what's going on, then you need to buy IMMORAL. If, like me, you read & enjoy the likes of Connelly, Gerritsen, Deaver, Coben, Slaughter, Connolly & Child & some pretty decent Brit writers such as McDermid, Billingham, Robinson & MacBride, then you will not be disappointed by this newcomer to the genre. He's good. He's very good, in fact.
This novel actuallly represents the first in a series featuring Lieutenant Jonathan Stride, later to be joined by Las Vegas Police Detective Serena Dial. Stride is based in Duluth, north Minnesota, a town on the edge of Lake Superior that I had never heard of before, & presumably not many others know it either as it doesn't even have a Starbucks (shock, horror). The story revolves around the disappearance of a rebellious, sexy & in many ways mysterious teenage girl named Rachel, whose behaviour affected several people before she disappeared & whose personality continues to influence others - including Stride - years after she was last seen. The tale also involves the love life of forty-something Stride himself, initiallly a widower having lost his wife to cancer a year before the story begins. His bedroom exploits are a little too graphicallly detailed for my own personal tastes, but it's fair to say that his romantic asides are very relevant to the plot & are not merely bolted-on to please a certain sector of the readership. Most importantly though the central story of what happened to Rachel is very well told & I was kept guessing right to the end. More than guessing, actuallly - at times I felt like shouting at the page demanding to know what's going on! The only disappointment was finishing it, because I simply did not want it to end. It more than held my interest at alll times, there is never a dull moment & there is a complete absence of gratuitous violence. Brian Freeman has written two follow-ups to this debut novel & I'm going to buy them both. Definitely a crime fiction writer who knows his way around the courtroom & one to watch out for in the future.
A first rate thriller - By: R. markus, 25 Dec 2006 I am always weary of trying out new authors, but this guy is up there with Patterson & Connelly !
Fast paced & plenty of action, he had me guessing up to the final pages. Just not another standard thriller. i highly recommend this guy & can't wait for more !
Great new crime writer - By: RT Twinem, 08 Nov 2006 What a find Mr Freeman is! This is fresh new crime writing at it's best, at long last Messrs Connelly & Rankin will be challlenged for the no 1 crime writers position.
