Die For Me by Karen Rose

No. of pages: 695
Rating: 9/10
Series: Vartanian Trilogy (Book 1)

Synopsis: A secret cellar
A multimedia designer is hard at work. His latest computer game, Inquisitor, heralds a new era in state-of-the-art graphics. But there's only one way to ensure that the death scenes are realistic enough...

An isolated field
Detective Ciccotelli's day begins with one grave, one body and no murder weapon. It ends with sixteen graves, but only nine bodies and the realisation that the killer will strike again...

A living hell
When it's discovered that the murder weapons are similar to those used in medieval torture, Ciccotelli knows that he's up against the most dangerous opponent of his career - let the games begin...

Review: A game designer is killing people using medieval torture as inspiration for his new game, so when the field of previous bodies are found, it's a race against time to find the killer before he strikes again.

This is the first Karen Rose I've read, and using this as an example, her books are exactly the kind of thrillers I love to read. At 700 pages, it's a hefty book, but I never once felt like the plot was dragging, or the story was boring. The characters were great, and easily distinguishable even though there was a lot of people to remember. Vito and Sophie were my favourites, although as they're the main characters it's not all that surprising, but I thought they had a realistic depth about them, they weren't perfect and were down to earth, so that made them enjoyable to read about. The plot, whilst nothing massively original, was interesting and gripping, I particularly liked the medieval aspect of it which seemed extensively researched. I also enjoyed the fact that she mixed some pretty gruesome murder scenes, with some nice family scenes, and a blossoming romance, so it all flowed through really well. I can't wait to get started on the second book, and would definitely recommend them to thriller fans, but don't let the size of them put you off, once you're reading them, you don't even notice the length.