Somewhat over the top hostage thriller that uses every twist and turn in the plot available. An alcoholic police negotiator dragged to an incident on the day she planned suicide gets it all off to a rousing start and the smoke and mirrors start then and continue dizzyingly throughout. Pretty silly but entertaining and who doesn’t love a happy ending!

I honestly didn't expect to love this book as much as I did.

This book follows Ira who in what she expected to be her last day on the earth, gets pulled back into her job as a hostage negotiator when a man breaks into a radio station. For each hostage, he calls a number from the phonebook, at random. If they answer with a specific slogan, a hostage goes free. If they don't, a hostage dies. The only issue is the thing he wants is his girlfriend except she died 8 months ago in a car accident.

The characters themselves were all complicated. Maybe it's because the book was set in a day but you couldn't guess anyone except Ira's motivations but that worked well for the genre of the book. I think that's what made me guess the whole way through. The characters weren't also likeable but they didn't need to be for you to feel sympathy or empathy. I think that could have gone both ways but was written very well here.

The plot itself kept me guessing the whole way through, I genuinely had no idea where it would end it what the twist would be and also who was reliable and who wasn't. I think that in itself added to the story.

My only issue was that while I understand why it was put in, the things about Ira's daughter just didn't find my interest. Maybe it's because we never met her so I wasn't that upset about it or because Ira wasn't too much of a likeable character so I wasn't invested in what she wanted but frankly I didn't care.

Overall I greatly enjoyed this, it went to places I didn't expect and the twists in the plot weren't things I was able to guess. I would 100% recommend this book as a good thriller.

I would like to thank Netgalley and Head of Zeus for an advance copy of Amok, a stand-alone thriller set in Berlin.

Early in the morning a man holds seven people hostage in a radio station studio. He starts to play a new version of the programme’s favourite game, Cash Call. Answer the phone with an amended slogan and he’ll release a hostage, answer it with anything else and … Troubled hostage negotiator Ira Samin is brought in to negotiate live on air.

I don’t always gel with Mr Fitzek’s writing so I never know if I’ll love it or hate it. I love Amok, the premise, the plotting, the tension, the twists and the pace are fantastic. I read it in one sitting, unable to put it down.

I should probably say first off that this is a thriller so realism is not a major consideration and why should it be if it gets in the way of an absorbing and entertaining read? The hostage scenario is breathtaking in its audacity (and not all it seems) so that grabs the reader from the start. The motive behind it opens a can of worms and what can only be called an unconventional conspiracy. I think the author is a master of his craft as he gradually reveals secrets and lies and throws in so many twists it leaves the reader dizzy, but not confused as it is all clearly explained.

The meat of the novel lies in the conversations between Ira and the hostage taker. It’s cat and mouse with both sides giving and taking. She has to reveal her innermost feelings about her daughter’s death in return for him delaying a phone call. I felt the psychological pressure and pain.

Amok has a bit of everything and is tied up in a lovely satisfying bow at the end, therefore I have no hesitation in recommending it as a good read.

Some years ago I got this as on Audible. I was working away and listened to it in the car - the comboination of high production values and a cracking story made listening a great experince, especially, as I was driving and it almost felt like I was experiencing what 101 listeners would . When I saw this as a book, I wondered whether it could be as good

YES! it certainly is - the tension build up as Ira Samin the negotiator goes head to head with the psycho making the most bizzare unachievable demands...and then we begin to see that maybe he isn't as crazy as they first thought. I won't say any more to spoil the plot. It certainly is as tense and mysterious reading as listening

One curiosity, and I don't know why, in Audible, Ira asks for a "Coke Light Lemon" - in the book, she asks for a Cola. Perhapos the Coca Cola Corporation didn't want to be associated with the Ira Samin character?

Verdict:
If you haven't listened to it on Audible - get it; great idea, great story and good twists (oops - sorry!)
If you have listened to it on Audible, get the book anyway, as it's fun to experience the atmosphere, characters and action in different media

Hostage negotiator and alcoholic, Ira, has decided to end her life. Suffering from guilt over her daughter’s suicide and seeing her relationship with her other daughter fractured, life does not seem worth living. At the eleventh hour the police summon her to help with a unique hostage situation and Ira finds herself thrown into a terrifying situation.
Visitors to a Berlin radio station are being held hostage in a terrifying game. When the hostage taker calls a random telephone number, answering the call with the correct slogan will set a hostage free. If not, they die.
This hostage taker, Jan May, is no ordinary terrorist though. All Jan wants is to see his fiancee again. Informed by police that his fiancee had died in a car accident, Jan received a mysterious call from her seconds before the police visited him. Believing her to still be alive, Jan devises his deadly game to enable him to find out the truth.
I really enjoyed this book. Fast paced and never dull, there were plenty of plot twists and interesting characters.
Thank you to Head of Zeus and Netgalley for this advance review copy in exchange for an honest review.

Wow, wow, wow!

The storyline is amazing and while the book is a great read, the Audible production was fantastic and really added a great dimension.

This story is fab, well thought out and intriguing. You wonder what will happen next at every turn, while starting to develop a real fondness for Ira. Highly recommend a listen, you will love it!

The first book i have read by this author, and it had great promise. A hostage situation at a radio station and callers have to play a game to save the hostages lives. Okay so far. The first half of the book was so slow i nearly gave up and then WHAM talk about busy. Plots and twists too many to count. I don't know if this is the translation or if this is the writers style. All in all an okay read.

Storyline sounded intriguing but I'm afraid that is as far as it went for me. The first few chapters were from the perspective of different people but with no context to see how they might fit together. I decided not to spend further time persisting with it - just not for me. Thanks to NetGalley and Head of Zeus for an advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

Steadily increasing in intensity and complexity, pulls you in further and further with a tapestry of red herrings and misdirection - who is the bad guy? Everything resolved in a satisfying conclusion that leaves no threads loose - great story!

Jan May is a certified psychotherapist whose life was turned upside down eight months ago when his beloved girlfriend, Leoni, allegedly died in a car accident. Convinced that Leoni is still alive and having nothing left to lose, Jan storms into the premises of one of Berlin's most prominent radio stations and takes several people hostage. Distorting the rules of a popular game, Cash Call, he declares that he will call a random number in the city every hour and if the person who picks up the phone doesn't respond with a specific slogan, he will shoot one of the hostages. His only demand is to see Leoni once again, even if she is officially considered to be deceased. Jan's radical transformation from a peaceful, law-abiding citizen into a terrorist determined to kill stems from his unwavering belief that he is the victim of a huge conspiracy involving people high up in the judicial hierarchy.

Ira Samin is a criminal psychologist and hostage negotiator working for the police and the reader is introduced to her character as she wakes up one day hellbent on taking her own life. Ira is still mourning the death of her daughter, Sara, who committed suicide and is one the verge of swallowing poison when a colleague and ex-lover, Gotz, traces her and asks her to help with the situation in Radio 101 point 5. As Ira makes her first attempts to contact and establish rapport with Jan, she begins to suspect that perhaps there is some percentage of truth in his wild speculations and accusations. Soon, Ira and some of her most trusted comrades start investigating the circumstances surrounding Leoni's death and they find many holes in the official explanation of the accident. In parallel, Ira will find herself more personally involved in the hostage situation as one of the victims is her other daughter, Katharina or Kitty.

Amok is a bumpy ride of a thriller and the story has so many twists that ends up being over-the-top and implausible. Readers who are familiar with Fitzek's novels will recognize the author's tradermark writing style and multi-layered plotting which is often perceived as overly complex and unnecessarily convoluted. What begins as a claustrophobic, tense narrative quickly disintegrates into a roller-coaster of quirky surprises and unexpected revelations, supposed to keep the reader's attention fixed to the pages. Unfortunately, the repetition of cliched tropes deems the novel conventional and the sloppiness in characterization and dialogue does nothing to mitigate that impression. We are supposed to empathize with both Ira and Jan, but their backstories are relayed in such a way that they resemble more like riddles than a character's background information. The German author heavily relies on the spin factor to keep the suspense alive, but fails to deliver in almost every other aspect of a a decent crime/thriller novel. Recommended only to Fitzek's hardcore fans.

This novel has a great premise - man takes hostages at radio station and demands callers play a game to save the hostages lives - however, it seems to lose its way around halfway through. It's tightly paced, some great scenes and setup until a change, with plot twists and revelations coming almost continuously during the second half. I'll caveat this though with the fact that Amok is translated from German and, sometimes, I wonder whether the translation is as good as it could be - some lines land flat but may have been a lot more hard hitting in the original language. Altogether, an okay novel and something that will help you wile away an evening as the days are drawing in.

Fitzek fans will not be disappointed by this book. All his typical ingredients appear here, suspense, thrill, and constant twists. But what makes this one of his best books is the emotional impact that it hits the reader with, in its finale. I think he handled the theme of guilt extremely well.
If you liked his previous books, you'll thoroughly enjoy Amok. If you're a new Fitzek reader, prepare for a fast paced thriller full of suspense but also expect some plot holes that you'll have to look aside in order to make the most of your reading experience.
Thanks to NetGalley and publishers for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I dont think i was the audience for this book. I know its recently translated into english. I have noticed international books tend to be very long and drawn out and i think that is what made it hard to get into this book.

I never thought Sebastian Fitzek could create a scariest villain than the one presented in his novel Seat 7a, but I was clearly mistaken! This is a crazy ride of a book, no less frightening, about a police psychologist trying to overcome another deranged killer.

Hostage negotiator, Ira, has decided to die. She’s suffered guilt over her daughter’s death for too long, her other daughter is not speaking to her and she’s had enough. But her plans are put on hold when the police summon her to help with a unique hostage situation. Someone is holding several people hostage, in a terrifying game - when he calls a random number, if the call is answered with the correct slogan, a hostage will be set free. If not, they die. Ira finds herself pulled in to the hostage taker’s world, as she tries to fulfill his demand. One that seems impossible to accomplish.

I thoroughly enjoyed this clever story, with its many twists and multi layered characters. I was captivated for almost the entire book, desperate to know what was going on and who could be trusted. There were also several mysteries woven into the story - what really happened to the kidnapper’s girlfriend? What was Ira’s daughter trying to tell her on her last day? Why was the full story behind Ira and her other daughters estrangement? and more! Thankfully all of my questions were answered by the end and we weren’t left to guess, as I feared might happen. 

I did enjoy the first half of the book slightly more than the second half. The intense radio hostage ‘game’ had me riveted to my seat. The second half, although shining light on the answers to the mysteries, sometimes went a little too far in asking us to suspend belief, but I was still immensely entertained! 

If you enjoy unique hostage mysteries, do pick this one up. I read an e-book version, but I have also heard it is also a brilliant audiobook with a full cast and sound effects, which I think would enhance the experience even more!

This was a good book with a nice mix of lies and plotting, and it kept me guessing until the end how all of it fit exactly.

Loved this book
Took me back to some of the classics from my younger years
Books like Cathedral and Rivers of Babylon by Nelson Demille
Set in Berlin, but it could be any major City, a man takes over the Breakfast Radio Show, and unless his Girlfriend is brought to him hostages will die. The thing is, she’s been dead for a year, or has she.
The police chief Hostage negotiator is a functioning alcoholic who was about to kill herself until she is forced back to work to help with this situation
An also absorbing read

‘Good morning, Berlin. It’s 7.35am. And you’re listening to your worst nightmare.’

However, it’s eight months previously that Jan May’s nightmare starts following a garbled phone call from his fiancée Leoni Gregor and almost simultaneously a hammering on the door reveals a detective who informs him that she is dead, killed in a car accident. How can this be? He wants answers hence his drastic decision to take seven hostages at Radio Station 101 Point 5. He demands listeners play Cash Call and if they use the exact words he requires then a hostage goes free, if not, a hostage dies. Thus starts a game of Russian Roulette by phone. The police bring in Ira Samin, a criminal psychologist to negotiate, she reluctantly agrees to help as she has other darker plans for the day.

The first half of the novel is good with a dangerous game ensuing with potentially catastrophic consequences. At times, it seems as if Ira and the SEK (Special Response Unit, like SWAT) are in a no win, rock and a hard place situation which is quite exciting. The mystery of Leoni is a good one and it becomes increasingly intriguing as more revelations are made. It soon becomes clear that nothing is quite as it seems and my plot antenna is in full twitch mode, some things I do work out as there are hints and others are a good surprise.

However, in the second half this promising book loses its way when it becomes just too convoluted and too far fetched to buy into. Too much betrayal, too much scene setting, too much deception and yes, unlikely as it may seem to a lover of a plot twist, too many twists and so it becomes over the top. Then there’s the ending. It builds and builds and what we get is too neat so it underwhelms and the prevarication to get to Ira’s truth is really irritating. Some of the dark humour goes over the top of my head and is probably due to a too literal translation issue and I don’t like these bits as they seem frivolous and unnecessary. The frequent repetition of Ira wanting a Cola Light Lemon drink drives me insane - somebody get her one PLEASE.

Overall, I really like Sebastian Fitzek and have read a number of his books but this one is not his best book by any means. Other reviewers who listened to it in audible are full of praise and I can see how it would work much better in this format, so maybe give that a try.

With thanks to NetGalley and especially to Head of Zeus for the widget in return for an honest review.

Jan May is a psychotic-maniac who takes beloved radio station 101 point 5 hostage where he embarks on a campaign of terror against the citizens of Berlin every hour in the form of ‘Cash Call.’ Where is the member of the public answers the phone incorrectly, he’ll shoot one of his hostages. Police psychologist and negotiator Ira Samin are rushed to the scene to calm the situation; bringing along with her access emotional baggage that only complicated the situation further. Amok is an absolute winner of a book, I found the plot to be engaging and exciting right from the first page. In the prologue, Jan receives a call from his fiancee that sets the tone for the whole book. A mysterious conversation that states; “Don’t believe them,” before being cut off.

As a lead character, Ira Samin is very unconventional. She epitomizes the apathetic, suicidal trope to perfection. Many times I have read a book with a main character that has given up on life and comes across as unrelatable and, frankly, annoying. However, Ira Samin is an enthralling and intriguing character. Her role as a negotiator pits her ailing wits against Jan May, whom she engages with, and ends up relaying her life story, regaling how she has fallen into the pits of alcoholism and turned desperately suicidal. There’s something very tragic about her story and how it is revealed throughout Amok is as gripping as the action; there is a slow burn to the telling of Ira’s personal story that is interwoven throughout the main, thriller aspect of the novel.

There are some elements to the story that could come across as incredulous. Taking a radio station and some hostages and getting the city to play a killer game of cash-call and the plotline that follows seems to be extreme, however, the manner in which it is written makes the story utterly believable. Jan May is a man desperate for answers about the whereabouts of his fiancé and this is the absolute last resort for him to find them. Ira Samin is a depressed, suicidal, alcoholic hell-bent on ending her life throughout the novel and yet she is relatable in how she expresses herself and tells her story. There is a believable realism to them and their characters and leads to their development as the story progresses.

The plot of the story is fast-paced. It twists in so many different ways as to keep the reader guessing. Nothing resolved in the way I thought it would and the plot kept me guessing throughout the entirety of the novel. As soon as you think everything is figured out, something comes along to side-swipe your thoughts and completely change track.

All of Amok is well-written and well translated; I didn’t feel like I missed anything for this book having been translated into English from German. The descriptions of Berlin and the German setting elements to the book left me with wonderful imagery and at no point did I feel like I had missed out.

Amok is a page-turner of a book. Each of the chapters leaves the reader with a subtle foreshadowing of events that are yet to come. Instilling just enough sense of suspense without feeling overdone or over-the-top. They are light touches on events that are yet to happen or leave the reader hanging just enough to be eager to continue reading, just to discover what will happen to the character that has been left behind, only to reveal a chapter about another set of characters; only for the same to repeat – that intrigue of foreshadowing. It’s a masterful way to end each chapter to ensure that the reader keeps turning the pages to discover what’s going to happen next.

While a large element of Amok is about the thriller, the hostage-taking, and the crime being committed, there is also a softer side to the book. One that touches on mental health issues of loss, grief, and trauma. Ira Samin has lost one of her daughters to suicide and this topic is discussed in depth within the novel. Jan May has also lost the love of his life and the shared grief between the two characters is talked about live on air, throughout the hostage negotiations. So while this is a fast-paced, exciting novel, there is also a tender side to the novel that will endear even the hardest of thriller lovers.

How fun - this novel was gripping and fast paced. An unbelievably ridiculous plot that I really enjoyed this read.