🟨 Spilled Blood (2012) Review - Cliche Bingo | Book Waffle

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Spilled Blood (2012) written by Brian Freeman

I don't read a lot of mysteries, and this book didn't help my impression of them. The writing is amateurish. It's full of eyeroll-worthy cliches, passive language, and telling. The author does not trust the reader to understand what is happening; everything must be spelled out and overexplained. Maybe this is a hallmark style of mysteries, or maybe it's just Freeman. I'm not sure which.

We follow Christopher, a Mr. Generic if there ever was one. He is on a trip to meet his ex-wife and daughter in a bumfuck Minnesota town named St. Croix. Turns out his baby girl is accused of shooting and killing a classmate, a nepo baby from the pinky-out town of Barron. Thus Christopher goes snooping around the towns like Nancy Drew, getting into everyone's business and being your usual hackneyed detective. 

Also there may or may not be a child trafficking ring involved. 

Also there's a mystery man named Aquarius leaving weird, and frankly cringe AF, notes around town acting like he's fucking Batman. 

Also there's top secret chemical company or something that may or may not be poisoning the water and giving everyone cancer. Better keep them pink ribbons handy.

Grinch of an author showing his plethora of awful ideas.

Like goddamn. It's just a whole lot of mystery/thriller cliches thrown together and presented to us on a plate.

The Hatfields and McCoys drama between the two towns is so outlandishly unbelievable that I audibly laughed on multiple occasions, and the ending can't help but feel a little contrived. A religion theme pops up one minute and is gone the next. The not-so-subtle Monsanto evil corp is cartoonish.

This book desperately needed focus. There are so many characters and so much random surface-level tosh that I found myself zoning-out for minutes at a time, yet I never missed a beat because everything this book has is superficial. It really does feel like Disney for adults.

At least it manages to make a few scenes thrilling. The action scenes aren't badly written at all. It's clear that this was Mr. Freeman's strength. Otherwise, though, the book is completely forgettable.

🟨 Rating: 4/10

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