5.0 out of 5 stars
Great ReadX,
January 16, 2014
By William P. Finnin - See all my reviews
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Reprisal (Kindle Edition)
Straight forward, terse, by the book read. Robins knows the score. Not fancy, straight, intelligent writing. A procedural brief well worth a reader's time
Great ReadX,
January 16, 2014
By William P. Finnin - See all my reviews
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Reprisal (Kindle Edition)
Straight forward, terse, by the book read. Robins knows the score. Not fancy, straight, intelligent writing. A procedural brief well worth a reader's time
5.0 out of 5 stars Reprisal by alfie robins
23 Jan 2014
By kev dilks
Format:Kindle
Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
This book was a superb read great storyline Marlowe and his team are the to stay 5* author.
Kevin dilks
23 Jan 2014
By kev dilks
Format:Kindle
Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
This book was a superb read great storyline Marlowe and his team are the to stay 5* author.
Kevin dilks
5.0 out of 5 stars Good Gritty Novel
27 Jan 2014
By Hisboss
Format:Kindle Edition Amazon Verified Purchase
This is a well paced story set around the characters in a police station in the North East of England.
Alfie Robins does a great job of setting the scene with a grisly murder and then you are hooked and taken on a roller coaster ride, sharing the frustrations of the Police team as they struggle to solve the case.
I enjoyed this book very much and think that Mr Robins writes with great empathy - I highly recommend it.
WOW, Alfie Robins does have a good imagination
By norogis
Amazon Verified Purchase(What is this?)
This review is from: Just Whistle (Kindle Edition) Up to the last chapter I was going to award 4* but the last chapter clinched the extra one. To say more would spoil the surprise. This is written in the first person so it is very important to remember the chapter heading, this will appear as THE VILLIAN or THE DETECTIVE. I can understand that some people will find the imaginary conversations between the author and one of the characters a little unusual but I found it added to the mystique of the story. I liked the characters good or bad and I feel the whole thing would have lost its sparkle if it had been treated as a straight forward detective story.
Art in Life and Vice Versa
5.0 out of 5 stars Art in Life and Vice Versa in Hull, UK, July 29, 2013
By
Karen J. Dahood "moxie cosmos" (USA)
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Just Whistle
(Kindle Edition)
Luckily, I downloaded JUST WHISTLE first, before this delight...ful writer's more predictable procedural, REPRISAL (which I purchased next). JUST WHISTLE is a masterpiece. It takes into account the traditions of hard-boiled crime fiction, including the detective who is somewhat isolated from even himself. In this novel, the remarkable Robins is playing with the genre, and manages to keep alive the straightforward crime procedural in a recognizable, gritty port city, Hull, UK, while exposing the
case -- that is to say, his novel -- as a fiction. I cannot do service to his technique by explaining how. You must read it. If nothing else, it is a lesson in literature and why we love to read and write fiction. In an interview, Robins confesses he is a late-bloomer, having first worked in the environment he portrays - a very good thing. He also claims not to have been in a creative writing program - perhaps also a good thing. He did read a "how-to" by Stephen King, and while I am not a King fan, I can guess his playfulness might have found its inspiration there.
By
Karen J. Dahood "moxie cosmos" (USA)
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Just Whistle
(Kindle Edition)
Luckily, I downloaded JUST WHISTLE first, before this delight...ful writer's more predictable procedural, REPRISAL (which I purchased next). JUST WHISTLE is a masterpiece. It takes into account the traditions of hard-boiled crime fiction, including the detective who is somewhat isolated from even himself. In this novel, the remarkable Robins is playing with the genre, and manages to keep alive the straightforward crime procedural in a recognizable, gritty port city, Hull, UK, while exposing the
case -- that is to say, his novel -- as a fiction. I cannot do service to his technique by explaining how. You must read it. If nothing else, it is a lesson in literature and why we love to read and write fiction. In an interview, Robins confesses he is a late-bloomer, having first worked in the environment he portrays - a very good thing. He also claims not to have been in a creative writing program - perhaps also a good thing. He did read a "how-to" by Stephen King, and while I am not a King fan, I can guess his playfulness might have found its inspiration there.