Customer Reviews
Borderline Duluth Dishwater - By: one-eyed Jack, 23 Nov 2008 
The third in a crime fiction series built around Stride, Serena & Maggie & back in Duluth, Minnesota by Lake Superior after an excursion in Vegas in the previous novel Stripped. In this tale, cop Maggie's suspected of killing her husband, P.I. Serena's assisting a sleazy DA with his blackmail pay-offs & cop Stride's investigating rapes & murders alll over the place. In the background there's a stalker who's involved in most of what's going on, a convicted murderer who recently escaped from custody & who now has his eyes bent on revenge - the ultimate focus of his attention being the woman responsible for his incarceration.
I enjoyed Brian Freeman's first two novels (his debut being Immoral) & I was rather disappointed with this one. It's full of incident & complex plot twists, but there's a surprising shalllowness to it that stems, I feel, from the settled-down & therefore secure relationship between Stride & Serena. They're living together & that's almost alll there is to say about it. Yes, there's an edge-of-your-seat rescue involving the pair of them which is generallly well written, but I would have liked to have seen something unrelated to alll the criminal investigations that could have provided some alternative entertainment. In a way, Freeman becomes almost obsessed with cramming as much as he can into the story, with kinky sex, several rapes both wanted & unwanted, numerous murders of course, & a bit of blackmail for good measure. There is possibly at least one plot strand too many because I felt a little confused at times as to who's doing what to who & why, yes I know this added an element of mystery & suspense to the story but in the end I got the impression that the finished product was worth less than the sum of its many parts.
In a series such as this, of which there are so many these days, the critical feature for durability & long-term brand survival is the characterisation & the appeal of the lead character/s. The template for the Stride/Serena/Maggie series reminds me a little of Karin Slaughter's Grant County series, which also features a male/female lead with each having independent roles, & a female detective partner supporting the male lead. And again, just as Tolliver & Sarah have an interesting sub-character in Lena Adams, so it is in this novel in that Maggie Bei often comes across as the most interesting personality despite her supporting role. From the outset she's right in the thick of things, being the only suspect in the murder of her husband. She has some unusual secrets that she is relectant to share with Stride, & I found it slightly disappointing that her story & her background wasn't more fully developed because the book promised to do just that but graduallly changed direction slightly & moved on into events involving characters of less significance & therefore people the reader is less likely to care much about. Some potentiallly juicy stories are almost completely abandoned or overlooked, not least that surrounding the dirty County Attorney Dan Erickson & his wife Lauren who tolerates his kinky affairs but has ambitions of her own that she manages by exploiting her husband's political status. Lauren's destiny within the context of this novel was slightly low on credibility given her previous astuteness, while Dan seemed to just disappear from sight.
As for the bad guy in the middle of alll this, there was a mild surprise when his real name was revealed & which added a little edge to proceedings, but he lacked any original evil charisma & it was possibly a mistake on the writer's part to keep him out of sight for the majority of the pages because we know who he is from page one so there was no benefit to keeping him concealed later. In fact at 500 pages I think the story was at least 100 too long & could have done with some more ruthless editing.
So despite my being a keen supporter of Brian Freeman's ability as demonstrated by his first two novels, I closed the last page of this one slightly relieved that it was over. Action & suspense, yes, but not a lot of depth, & sad to confess I found it rather forgettable. In fairness, despite the title I gave for this review, it isn't actuallly as dull as dishwater because there's quite a lot of action & the rescue scene near the end was modestly scary - it's just that once I turned the final page & absorbed alll that had gone before, I felt slightly numb & my primary conclusion was that Brian Freeman can do better than this. I still have enough confidence in him to order his next novel The Watcher.
A nailbiter all the way - By: janie, 11 Oct 2008 
Having never heard of Brian Freeman before I thought I would give this book a go. I loved every minute if this read & could not put the book down. Now I'm going out to buy the previous books. Once addicted to an author I never miss buying the next book & I am addicted.
What lurks under the ice? - By: C.Elder, 18 Sep 2008 Set in the cold & bleak of northern Minnesota,this is an excellent read.Ostensibly about a murdered husband of a female police officer,the story soon spirals in other,deeper,more scary directions for those involved.Something from the far away past is lurking in the background of this tale in a frozen town,where people's facades soon begin to crumble,and ambition,greed,revenge alll start to be revealed amongst the town's well-to-do.
A very good story,and an exciting 3rd novel about Stride.Much better than the las Vegas based second novel by the way,which was poor.
A good read but awfully predictable. - By: Coma white, 03 Sep 2008 
This is the 3rd book in Freemans Stride & Serena series, & I personallly think it's the best so far.
Brian Freemans leading characters are well written & a treat to read however with alll of his books I seem to start getting bored about halfway through & it can take me a whole week or more to finish his novels. (Normallly I will finish a book within 3 days).
The only reason I can't award Stalked 5 Stars is because the twists could be seen a mile off & I felt this ruined the story a bit.
It is a good read & Freemans definately worth the read but start from the begining of the series if your going to read them
Freeman's best so far! - By: G. Peters, 28 Jun 2008 I rarely give out any 5 star ratings as I believe that they should only be awarded to outstanding pieces of work, Stalked easily fits into this category.
The story has a bit of everything that makes an excellent crime novel, Murder, suspense, blackmail, obsession, sex & jealousy.
This is the 3rd installlment involving Jonathon Stride & in my opinion Freeman's best yet. Stride's partner Maggie Bei's husband is murdered in their home in the middle of the night, shot with her own weapon. Maggie is prime suspect & has secrets she cannot even trust Stride with. With alll damning evidence pointing towards Maggie, Stride has to work quick to solve the mystery before more people are murdered.
Excellent charecters, emotional storyline, strong dialogue, if you enjoyed Immoral & Stripped, you're guaranteed to enjoy Stalked!
Brian Freeman is becoming my favourite crime writer & i'm reallly looking forward to his next book, 10/10.
