This complex indie thriller highlights the dilemma which faces so many debut authors. Write something stylish, provocative, imaginative and challenging and you may never connect with an audience who would appreciate it. Write a Jack Reacher clone or a domestic drama gussied up as a ‘psychological thriller’ and you stand a better chance of selling some books.

But if the former could find an agent and be promoted by one of the big five publishing houses then it could easily stacked up on the ‘contemporary literature’ shelf, entered for obscure awards and gushed over by the self-perpetuating clique of mainstream media critics.

Killer’s Bible kinda falls into this category. It’ll be too difficult for many casual readers; a seriously twisted stream of consciousness. Imagine American Psycho meets Dexter… sort of. Only it’s darker than Dexter, a veritable torrent of black-hearted bile.

This ambitious ‘memoir’ takes us inside the mind of a hopeless inadequate, a go-nowhere lawyer working in a small town on tedious cases of no consequence for his family firm. Fuelled by his self-loathing, his frustration and rage build to the point where his meticulously constructed form of self-harm no longer contains them, and he lashes out when ‘The Surge’ can’t be suppressed any longer.

Told in the first person with a seemingly random timeline, it’s hard to know what’s real and what’s fantasy in Calvin’s world. He claims to have murdered his older brother, beats up on a teenager at the mall and seethes with unrelenting rage at the average joes who surround and oppress him. But Calvin crumbles whenever he’s called out by his colleagues or rivals. To them he’s a weirdo, hostile and unpredictable – and their interactions revolve around necessity, disgust, curiosity and sympathy.

The author evokes a genuinely unpleasant atmosphere that permeates his protagonist. Calvin feels unclean, tawdry and sleazy; a profound misanthrope, scornful of everyone he encounters. He can’t relate to anyone on a personal level and is the very definition of sexual frustration. He continually misinterprets his interactions with women, objectifies his female colleagues, and perceives his assistant only in an erotic context.

If you’re looking for a conventional narrative, a coherent plot with a mystery and a resolution – well, you won’t find it here. The finale is frustratingly ambiguous; if this book starts in the middle then it ends in the middle as well. At times the hectoring, self-indulgent monologue becomes tiresome and repetitive – but there’s an irresistible thread of intrigue which kept me coming back to the narrative.

One really irritating point: the author uses far too many exclamation marks - but I understand that's been fixed in the publication edit...

One thing is certain; after reading this you’ll never be sure about what’s going through the mind of any lawyer you may meet…

7/10

I was very interesting in reading Killer’s Bible because of the idea of seeing how and what a sociopath thinks and sees life. However, I was pretty disappointed in the writing of this book. The writing style felt like a short staccato that left me a little confused. This book left me feeling indifferent and frankly a little annoyed.

I received a copy from BooksGoSocial via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I didn't like this book at all. When I read the synopsis I thought it was going to be a tongue in cheek sort of book about how to get away with murder from the point of view of a murder. When I made it a little more than halfway through the book and the protagonist hadn't even murdered anyone I was done trying to plod though. The punctuation in this book included a lot of exclamation marks which I didn't think were necessary to the story, and once I started to notice how often they came up I couldn't stop noticing. It really sounded like a much better book than it turned out to be. The location of the book was also very confusing, I don't know if they author did that on purpose so that the reader couldn't track the "killer" but in the long run I was just irritated and confused.

I'd like to thank netgalley.com and BooksGoSocial for allowing me the opportunity to read this book for free in exchange for an honest review.

I did not know what to think of this book. It was quite odd to me. I almost gave up several times. Not very believable, but creepy in itself.

Quite the interesting read. I wasn't too fond of the writing style, if I"m being completely honest. The main character reminded me a bit of American Psycho - narcissistic and annoying.

A disturbing novel that demonstrates one never knows what lurks just beyond the surface. The unhinged writing style takes you spiraling into the mind of a man battling his inner demons while struggling to maintain the facade of an upstanding attorney. It's raw. It's tense. It's hard to follow at times. And it will leave you with many questions.
*Thank you to NetGalley and Calvin Loch for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Thankyou to NetGalley, BooksGoSocial and the author for the opportunity to read an advanced readers copy of Killer's Bible in exchange for an honest and unbiased opinion.
I was intrigued by the premise of the storyline. Unfortunately, I felt it failed to deliver. I really struggled to finish this book.
Not for me.

The concept behind this book is very intriguing. It is, of course, impossible to know if the anonymous author is really a killer or if this memoir is really fiction. Either way, I was so intrigued that I pushed this to the front of my very long TBR list.

Sadly, Killer’s Bible was anything but an interesting read. The rambling narrative reveals nothing notable aside from the author’s misogyny and apparent love for exclamation marks. There are also some odd inconsistencies. For example, the writing is in UK English and everything about it sounds British. Except for the fact that one of the characters mentions ICE, despite that being a US only term. In the UK, they call it IE. So, where exactly is this story set? Who knows?

I tried to get through this entire book, but I just couldn’t. The writing style and story itself failed to pull me in at all. I felt nothing for anyone in the book other than a detached sense of annoyance. Everything about the book felt detached, in fact. And maybe that’s proof that it was written by a sociopath without any empathy. I DNF’ed this at 27%.