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By the Time You Read This

Author: Giles Blunt
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Category: Book

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Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars

2 reviews
Sales Rank: 617476

Media: Mass Market Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 352

ISBN: 0312945485
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780312945480
ASIN: 0312945485

Publication Date: July 29, 2008 (In 5 Days)
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Ships from U.S.A., to anywhere in the United Kingdom! Orders only take 7-10 days! We specialise in service to the U.K. and only ship airmail.

Also Available In:

•	Hardcover - By the Time You Read This
•	Paperback - By the Time You Read This
•	Hardcover - By the Time You Read This (Crime Scene)
•	Hardcover - By the Time You Read This

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Customer Reviews:

5 out of 5 stars

same book! July 13, 2007
10 out of 11 found this review helpful

"by the time you read this" is "fields of grief" under another title-fantastic book but this should be made clearer- i was about to order it until i read the review and realised!

5 out of 5 stars

... a murder has been done March 5, 2007
7 out of 7 found this review helpful

If there's any justice in the reading world, then "By the Time You Read This" will get Giles Blunt some serious notice. That's because Blunt has topped himself in his fourth mystery novel involving John Cardinal and the fictional town of Algonquin Bay, with his darkly compelling writing, excellent characters, and a brilliantly harrowing finale.

Cop John Cardinal is on a stakeout when he is called in to a suicide, a woman jumping off a building -- and it turns out to be his wife Catherine. Cardinal is devastated by her loss, but he starts to suspect that her death was not suicide when a series of cruel, taunting cards start arriving. His fellow cops (and Catherine's shrink) think he's just in denial, especially since a suicide note in Catherine's handwriting was found beside her body.

Meanwhile detective Lise Delorme is investigating a child pornography case -- a series of photos of a man and a little girl -- and little details reveal that they were taken in Algonquin Bay. Meanwhile, Cardinal continues to find discrepancies in the supposed suicide, and as the clues slowly come together, he finds himself face to face with a killer who uses the most horrific weapon imaginable against his victims...

"By the Time You Read This" is one of those rare books that successfully straddles the line between psychological horror and crime mysteries. Blunt does have a little awkwardness -- the beginning is strainedly poetic, and the end could have used a couple more chapters to wrap everything up -- but the bulk of the book is pure gold.

Basically, Blunt is perfectly suited to mystery writing. His writing casts a dark, noirish light on everything, where everyone is untrustworthy and all sorts of nasty secrets simmer just under the surface. And he gives a gritty feeling to many of the scenes of copwork, but still manages to keep a tasteful, quiet approach to things like child pornography.

His writing excellence shines in scenes like a young man's suicide, or Cardinal picking up the body of his wife. And the mystery itself uncoils gradually through the plot, dropping little hints along the way. The hints build up and up and up, until it becomes crystal clear who the killer is, and the way in which he's (almost) untraceably killing his victims. It's a brilliant idea.

John Cardinal gets the rough treatment this time around, developing some obsessions and trying to deal with grief -- all the stages, from denial to painful acceptance. Delorme has a lot of the copwork in this book, and she's a solid character who really works at finding the little girl in the pictures.

"By the Time You Read This" is a brilliant mystery, with only a bit of awkwardness at the beginning and end, but with a unique murderer and a twisty storyline. Definitely a great read.