(I received a free copy of this book from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.)

He lives in your community, in a nice house with a well-tended garden. He shops in your grocery store, bumping shoulders with you and apologizing with a smile. He drives beside you on the highway, politely waving you into the lane ahead of him.
What you don’t know is that he has an elaborate cage built into a secret basement under his garage. And the food that he’s carefully shopping for is to feed a young woman he’s holding there against her will—one in a string of many, unaware of the fate that awaits her.
This is how it’s been for a long time. It’s normal…and it works. Perfectly.
Then he meets the checkout girl from the 24-hour grocery. And now the plan, the hunts, the room…the others—he doesn’t need any of them anymore. He only needs her. But just as he decides to go straight, the police start to close in. He might be able to cover his tracks, except for one small problem—he still has someone trapped in his garage.
Discovering his humanity couldn’t have come at a worse time.

Not sure what to make of this one.

On one hand, it was fresh and different (for me) - the story told from the killer's POV. (Yes, I am sure there are many books like this - I just haven't read them!) And, for the most part, it worked okay. Maybe not enough for me to be sympathetic to the character but, as a central character, he had enough going on to keep me interested, at least. Most particularly, his sense of humour. This book was laugh-out-loud funny in many instances and certainly made the reading more enjoyable. It was a fast-paced book, which I enjoyed, and it certainly wasn't too serious.

Unfortunately, the story itself was just hard work. There was very minimal backstory of our MC that it wasn't easy to ascertain exactly WHY he was doing it. Which made it hard to feel anything but dislike for him. Also, there was a lot of repetition throughout the book, as well as some mixed grammar.

One reviewer said that this book was a "wasted opportunity" - and I think that is a perfect summation. The story and character were there, but just weren't executed (so to speak) very well...


Paul
ARH