#FridayFiveChallenge ~ Buy or Pass ~ Hunting for Crows by Iain Cameron

Rosie Amber’s Friday Five Challenge, involves taking only five minutes to choose a book cover which appeals instantly. So take a few minutes, grab yourself a coffee…..and have a browse.

In today’s online shopping age, readers often base their buying decisions from small postage stamp size book covers (Thumb-nails), a quick glance at the book description and the review. How much time do they really spend making that buying decision?

AUTHORS – You often only have seconds to get a reader to buy your book, is your book cover and book bio up to it?

Rosie’s Friday Five Challenge is this….. IN ONLY FIVE MINUTES….

1) Go to any online book supplier,

2) Randomly choose a category,

3) Speed through the book covers, choose one which has instantly appealed to your eye,

4) Read the book Bio/ Description for this book, and any other details.

5) If there are reviews, check out a couple,

6) Make an instant decision, would you BUY or PASS?

This cover popped up almost as soon as I began this week’s search on Amazon. The misty river with the castle in the background, the crow of the title in the foreground and the muted colours. The tagline is intriguing too. 

Amazon UK | Amazon US

The book description reads…

Someone is killing former members of a rock band

A man drowns in a swollen river, trying to save his dog. 
In the mid-eighties he was the bass player in the Crazy Crows rock band. 
When the drummer dies exercising in his home gym, DI Angus Henderson of Surrey and Sussex Police becomes suspicious. 
Revisiting the events of the past is a trip down Memory Lane for some, but a rake over the coals of a sordid youth for others. With incidents and dates befuddled and confused by years of boozing and drugs, the DI realises he’s in for the long haul. 

Henderson probes deeper and deeper…until he unearths more than he bargained for. 

The tagline makes sense now. The kindle price is £1.99/$2.85. There are no reviews as yet on Amazon UK, the book was just released on 15th March. There are two reviews on Amazon US – one 3.52* and one 2* which isn’t very encouraging. This is the fourth book in the series, the first three have quite good reviews. 

This is the 3.5* review for this book…Actually 3.5 stars. Disappointed with the beginning. Probably oversensitive to animals, but hate killing a dog to get to a victim. Then the character of Henderson makes a comment about a pending raid for which he does not want to take an armed unit because he is afraid they will be “overpowered and then the bad guys will be armed”. I have my doubts any ranking officer in the police of the UK would say such a thing…how do trained officers become overpowered by unarmed men….I think that is the point of the training? It is a bit like not wanting SWAT to go along on a raid, as maybe the bad guys will take their guns….I realize he is an accountant, but I think it would behoove him to check with police officers. an out of character statement, it seems to me.

Does this particular station where Henderson works have no ARU? I have thought the prior books were ok.
The story of the stolen gold is interesting. Presume it is based on the Heathrow theft of gold in 1983? Several convictions, but the gold never recovered? Seems one person, at the end, found a good use for it….

Shame really, I liked the premise. So would I BUY or PASS? I’ll PASS. I would have passed anyway with it being the fourth book. I prefer to start with the first book in a series, and I still might look at the first book. 

If you’d like to enter next week’s challenge, and the more the merrier, check out Rosie’s blog to read about the Friday Five Challenge.

More Friday Five Challenge choices…

Rosie chose a Hamish Macbeth mystery

Shelley searches for witches