Finished the book this morning. I read it very fast, and that is always a compliment in itself, because it means it was engrossing enough that I couldn?t put it down. I have to admit that mystery-action books are not a huge part of what I read, so I may not be the best person to critique it from that point of view. Most of what I read are heavier, more philosophical types of books. However, for a fast fun read, I would definitely recommend it to others.
A couple things I noticed - there were some narrative time switches at the beginning. I didn?t notice them later in the book, but maybe that was because I was paying more attention to the story line at that point, but at the beginning there was some switching between past and present tense in the form of ?said? vs ?says?. Also, I know some books do switch between points of view, but I found it a bit distracting going from first-person to third-person. It seemed that there was not much advantage to the first-person point of view in this type of story, and maybe everything could have been in third person? Just my take on it.
I thought you did a really good job overall at ending chapters well with foreshadowing and making the reader want more - for example, at the end of chapter 25:
?He reached over gingerly with his right hand and made a call, one he?d regret later.?
Definitely makes you wonder who he called and what he will regret. You ended chapters more often than not with good leading sentences such as this, but a few times they were missing and that is something I would emphasize, as it is natural stopping point for readers unless there is some reason they ?have? to go on.
Overall, for being out of my usual genre I liked it and for your first book I would say really good! I can?t imagine all the effort you put into it, and congrats on the accomplishment.
Cheers
