Den of Vipers

Oooooookay.....so that was a thing.

This is definitely not going to be for everyone. Read the content warnings, read some non-spoiler reviews and be very aware of what this book contains before going into it, because it is dark. Whatever you think ‘dark' is times it by 10 then you have this book. It's graphic and violent at all times - sex, torture, killing, repeat.

So all in all I did enjoy it, but did have some issues with the writing. Mainly that it was just way too long! There is absolutely no reason for this to be 640+ pages. It's 5 people in the same apartment for a good 93% of the book. The rest of the time they are either in a non-descript car, a non-descript casino/restaurant/bar in a non-descript city. There is literally no world building (and there doesn't need to be in this story) so how can it be this long? Oh yeah, inner monologue. The repetitive inner monologue of 5 people takes up I'd say around 200 pages of the book, it feels endless. I'm fine with inner monologue but a paragraph at most is sufficient, we don't need 2 pages per person every few chapters. I ended up skimming this by half way.

Another gripe was the weird mix of UK and US English throughout. In one sentence we're hearing about someone's “mum” and a rugby team, and the next there's a “stick shift” in the car. I get that the decision to not pick a real city may have been deliberate so it appealed to global readers but the vocabulary used should at least be consistent.

All that said I did enjoy this for the most part and will look out for more from the author.