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Type of bind: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN num: 9780312363901
ISBN number: 0312363907
Label: St. Martin's Press
Manufacturer: St. Martin's Press
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 352
Printing Date: January 08, 2008
Publishing house: St. Martin's Press
Release Date: January 20, 2009
Sale Popularity Level: 30789
Studio: St. Martin's Press
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
A remorseless killer. A string of innocent, clean-cut victims. Detectives M.C. Riggio and Kitt Lundgren must race against a cold-blooded predator who moves at breakneck speed in this heart-pounding thriller from New York Times bestselling author Erica Spindler.
Hot on the heels of their last case, partners Mary Catherine (M.C.) Riggio and Kitt Lundgren, detectives in the police department's Violent Crimes Bureau in industrial, blue-collar Rockford, Illinois, are called out to a college student’s apartment where a young man with no criminal record, not even a noise complaint from his neighbors, appears to have been murdered in his sleep.
The trail seems cold, until another victim turns up, and then another… each one striking closer to home for M.C. The growing list of seemingly emotionless kills leaves M.C. and Kitt little to follow—like the very first victim, all the targets are young adults, kid-next-door types who’ve never taken a step outside the law. Meanwhile, the case starts to take its toll on M.C.’s personal life, setting her on edge with her partner and putting their hard-earned friendship in jeopardy. As M.C. and Kitt hunt a faceless killer, they are led deep into the cyberuniverse, where no one is who he seems and you never know who's watching. At the heart of this mesmerizing thriller is the relationship between two headstrong women as they struggle to balance their dual roles, to learn to trust, and to walk the fine line between upholding the law—and taking it into their own hands.
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Rated by buyers 
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I thoroughly enjoyed the main character M.C. and the special partnership between Kitt and M.C. The back stories on these 2 characters re: tug between career and personal relationships, the large extended family, personal tragedies, etc. serve as a great backdrop. I wish Spindler had developed them more. It feels as if she meant to do it but veered off once the main storyline got going. The main mystery plot is fast paced and fascinating enough to keep me reading. This is a good beach read and worth taking on a trip.
Rated by buyers 
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This might be one of those books that could be labeled "a quick read" but only because it's easy to scan a page and get the general idea of what happened. This is the very first book I've read by Erica Spindler and after reading it, I assumed she was not an very experienced writer. I was shocked to find that she's had several books published and quite a following of loyal readers.
I'm not going to judge this author by one book as it had potential of being really good if the characters weren't so stereotyped. If you're looking for a book with a quick moving storyline and don't want to have to "think" too much about what's going on, this book is perfect.
Rated by buyers -
This novel in the series featuring detective partners MC Riggio and Kitt Lundgren starts out with the murder of 20-year old computer hacker Matt Martin. The setting is Rockford, Illinois in January -- it's cold there and the case heats up as the body count rises. That was where the book started to devolve from really good to not so good for me. One after another, more people close to MC are killed. The motivation for these killings was quite hollow and with all that personal grief and MC's reaction to it floating around, it was hard to develop any kind of concern or care for the characters and the plot. The partners have their typical doubts of each other and still don't seem to realize that they need to work together. It all seemed so contrived somehow and the whole reason for all these murders wasn't really that interesting or compelling. I'd like to be able to say that the thriller was thrilling, but toward the end I just wanted to finish it. The parallel stories of MC and Kitt's romances, their families, and their personal lives -- that usually make the books more interesting -- didn't work this time. I do believe the major issue was the sheer number of deaths and the relationship of who was killed to the characters. It defied credulity to the point where I lost interest.
I am a fan of Spindler, and I've liked most of her books, but this one ended up actually being just "ho hum" and I'd advise that if you must read it, you borrow it.
Rated by buyers -
Mystery novels are tough to critique without handing out spoilers, so I will try to help this one along on comparisons.
Erica Spindler writes a good woman's mystery that moves along like a Janet Evanovich mystery, but without the humor. I say this is a woman's mystery because there is such a strong focus on relationships here. ie. M.C. & Kitt, M.C. & Dan, M.C. & her family, kitt & Joe, etc. I notice that when a large focus of the story is divied up between personal relationships and the actual murder(s) then the book will be enjoyed by a woman and not so much by a man.
Every now and then it does go into the world of cybercrime and computer hacking, and how law enforcement is tracking this form of crime activity. Then the story is a bit reminiscent of a Law & Order episode.
Anyway, Breakneak does move along at a reasonable clip, it is not boring, and the red-herrings are few so the reader has an excellent shot of solving this before M.C. and Kitt do. It is a pretty decent read if not particularly original.
NOTE: This is the very first Erica Spindler book I had read. Normally as a vine reviewer we recieve newer authors to hopefully give them a positive nudge. I was surprised to see that Ms. Spindler is actually rather a prolific author. So for her to be shuttled into the vine program I can only assume that her sales/fan base is not where it should be. I wish this were the book to push her forward, but it is sadly only average.
Rated by buyers -
I have never read any other novels by this author so I came to Breakneck fresh. This wasn't a bad book but it could've been so much better. MC is a female police detective and she seemed like every other female officer I've read about before. Afraid to love, afraid to trust, finds her family annoying but loves them, and would do anything for her partner. The rest of the characters were just as cardboard as her too. Partner that bails her out, Chief that lets anyone at all work on the case, and the know it all forensic geek. The pieces fell in place during this novel one right after the other until the little twist in the end. Even that wasn't terribly surprising. I also found it personally annoying that the chapters were so small, even divided into only covering a few hours of the same day. I believe that someone looking for a shallow and quick read would enjoy it more than someone who is more familiar with other authors of this genre.
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