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Ebook487 pages8 hours
Red 1-2-3
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
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About this ebook
Not all fairytales have a happy ending...
A gripping psychological thriller that you won't be able to put down. Perfect for fans of The Girl Before and I See You.
'You do not know me, but I know you. I have decided to call you: Red One. Red Two. Red Three. I know each of you is lost in the woods. And just like the little girl in the fairy tale, you have been selected to die...'
Karen, Sarah and Jordan have nothing in common aside from their hair colour. Red. To the man who has been watching their every move for months, this is enough. Their lives are now in his hands, their stories will only end when he chooses to reveal himself, unless they can find him first...
A gripping psychological thriller that you won't be able to put down. Perfect for fans of The Girl Before and I See You.
'You do not know me, but I know you. I have decided to call you: Red One. Red Two. Red Three. I know each of you is lost in the woods. And just like the little girl in the fairy tale, you have been selected to die...'
Karen, Sarah and Jordan have nothing in common aside from their hair colour. Red. To the man who has been watching their every move for months, this is enough. Their lives are now in his hands, their stories will only end when he chooses to reveal himself, unless they can find him first...
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Author
John Katzenbach
John Katzenbach is the author of the bestselling In the Heat of the Summer, which became the movie The Mean Season.Two more of his books were made into films in the United States, 1995's Just Cause and 2002's Hart's War.
Read more from John Katzenbach
Just Cause Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5What Comes Next Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Red 1-2-3 Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Day of Reckoning Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Dead Student Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Traveler Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
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Reviews for Red 1-2-3
Rating: 3.333333303333333 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
30 ratings3 reviews
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This was a tough review for me to write. I finally settled on 3 stars, mostly due to the last half.
It's an interesting premise. A has-been author in his early 60's is frustrated by his ordinary life. No one seems to appreciate his talent, realize how special he is. But he plans to remedy that with his next book. He's going to write a DIY manual: how to plan, execute & get away with the perfect murder. Or three.
He's already chosen his victims, 3 women who have nothing in common except their hair colour. They're all redheads. He's been following them & documenting their lives for months. Then begins the psychological aspect to the project. They each receive a letter alluding to Little Red Riding Hood & the Big Bad Wolf (BBW). They're also told they will die.
Karen is a doctor, living a quiet solitary life. The letter sends her into a tailspin, upsetting her orderly routine. Sarah's life is already out of control. She was a school teacher with a husband & child, content in their happy home. One car accident later, she is alone existing on vodka & pills. The last thing she needed was a cryptic letter. Jordan is in her final year at a private school, trying to stay out of the way of her parent's nasty divorce. Her grades are slipping & she has no friends to turn to when she receives her letter.
Meanwhile the BBW (we never do learn his real name) is busy writing. There are long passages throughout the book as he details his steps, giving advice on choices of weapon, importance of research, motivation & relationship with the victim. This will be his opus. And part of the reason I gave this book 3 stars. I get that this is his obsession & the author needs to demonstrate this as well as BBW's narcissism. Ironically, it was the creation of this textbook for murder that left me feeling like I was reading one. I found these sections overly long & self indulgent and started skimming to get to a place where something actually happened.
When he sends the women his next message, it leads to a pivotal development & this is where the book gets interesting. They find out about each other & meet. They couldn't be more different but at least they're not alone anymore. When they formulate & act on a plan in the last few chapters, it finally becomes a page turner.
There are peripheral characters but only one of note & that would be Mrs. BBW. Her appearance came as a surprise & by the end, I found her more interesting than her husband.
I won't spill the beans further except to say the ending was inventive & may take you by surprise. Just a little tighter editing & less space dedicated to our killer's writing process would have improved the flow & not interrupted the pace so much. Lord knows, it's almost impossible to come up with an original plot in this crowded genre so big kudos for that. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This is a sort of thriller riff on Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf. In this version, Red 1, 2, and 3 are each sent a letter from the BBW, a writer and possible serial killer, letting them know he is stalking them and there is no heroic woodsman to save them. As in most fairy tales, there is a bit of tongue in cheek and Katzenbach adds Mrs. Big Bad Wolf to the story to escalate the tension and the satirical edge. And it works. BBW is writing his Magnus Opus, a how to on murder and mayhem ala Grimm. The suspense builds. Do girls rule and wolves drool? Read it and find out, but approach this with a bit of mirth for full satisfaction
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A 60-something novelist decides to commit a series of murders, then write a book ‘based’ on these murders. He chooses three women who have nothing in common but the colour of their hair. He calls them the Reds and he’s the Big Bad Wolf and, in his writing, the ending will match the original version of the fairy tale; there will be no axe-weilding lumberjack to show up at the last minute to save the day. But it’s not enough to kill them, he sets out on a campaign to terrorize them first. As a result, the three women are made aware of each other and begin to make plans of their own.I really liked this premise. However, there were parts of the story which not only stretched my willing suspension of disbelief but grabbed it by the throat, threw it to the ground, and stomped on it. Some of the Reds’ actions seemed so obvious I would think three blind mice would have seen through them never mind anyone as high up the food chain as the Wolf. Which is to say, there were times the Big Bad seemed more cartoon- than fairy tale-evil, more Elmer Fudd than big bad wolf. And Mrs Big Bad seemed as oblivious as a little blonde girl in a cave full of talking bears. And yet, despite these gigantic woods-sized holes in the story, I actually quite enjoyed it. And that’s down to the three Reds who make very sympathetic victims turned survivor/fighters: Karen, the middle-aged and overly-cautious doctor, Sarah, the grieving widow drowning herself in alcohol, and Jordan, bright but angry prep school student. It was really their story and in their ending, they don’t need some axeman to save them because they’re more than capable of doing it themselves.