Book Review-- Come Out Come Out.

Come Out Come Out by H.A. Qureshi

Synopsis: Jenny Burke, a five year old girl, hears a car idling in the driveway. Thinking her father is home, she runs outside to greet him. As she approaches the car, she doesn't recognize the man sitting behind the wheel.

Jake Burke is at a hotel when his neighbor calls to inform him that his house is crawling with police officers. Unable to get through to his wife, Jake panics, and rushes home.

The man who kidnapped Jenny brings her to his house. This is where he keeps all of his young victims. He refers to the girls as his Little Dolls. Assigned to the case is FBI Agent Samantha Clarkson. She has been tracking kidnappers since she was assigned a case that involved the son of a professional football player. The ransom exchange had gone terribly wrong, and she blamed herself for the boy's murder. She has been trying to redeem herself since.

A suspicious car is caught by a traffic camera which leads the authorities to a firm in Manhattan. They question a woman responsible for the company's fleet of corporate vehicles. The woman notices an irregularity in the log, but does not tell the authorities about it. This was a mistake. She pays for it dearly.

Unable to find his daughter, Jake becomes disillusioned. He begins to lose hope. That is until he receives a phone call that changes everything.

Shelly's thoughts: I bought this for a reading/discussion group that I'm part of, and frankly I was so disappointed in it. I paid $5.99 for it--around the same price as a traditional paperback. I'm really glad I didn't go buy a physical copy, I would have been supremely irritated at myself. As it is, I'm trying to figure out if I can return the epub format. I bought this through Barns and Noble, and it clocks in at 533 pages, and there's some discrepancy between the Nook/epbub/Kindle version.

From the synopsis of the book--it seems rather interesting. I like books that are a little edgy and push the boundaries of comfort/security. However, this was really bad. I slogged through it, and even debated not finishing it. There are extremely graphic scenes, which I don't mind (it's fiction okay?) but the wording is extremely juvenile. Not to mention the characters are extraordinarily flat, the pace is choppy (and not in the good stylistic way, more like the author wandered off, forgot where he was and started up again).

The villain was unbelievable. Portrayed as a pedophile, and yet he completes sexual acts with grown women. It really shouldn't happen that way. Not to mention it's like the author came up with every bad thing in the world when it comes to sexual deviance and made this character have it. Jake, again, was unbelievable.

It just really irks me when a story has potential, but it's just page after page of crap. The women NOT taken by the antagonist are all objectified to the point where I was literally rolling my eyes. it seems like the author watched too many episodes of Criminal Minds and read too many true crime and James Patterson books and decided to sit down and write a novel. Unfortunately it comes out to nothing more than a beefed up crossover stan-boy fanfiction.

Rating:  Don't read this. It's really painful (and not in the subject matter, moreso the writing)Total Length:  560 pages.Formats: Kindle, Nook, EPub, Traditional.