A Man to Slay Dragons

Rating:
Summary: Fairy-Tale Quality
Review: Claire is a high powered New York attorney in self-imposed exile from her family in New Orleans, unable to come to grips with the murder of her sister and its impact on her family. She becomes entangled with a secret society which uses a lottery to offer the victims of crime their opportunity for revenge. Her life intersects with that of Liam, an FBI agent assigned to investigate the revenge ring, and a sadistic serial killer who collects souveniers from his victims. Against the backdrop of carnival New Orleans, the reader is treated to a memorable tale of good and evil, love and hate, romance and homicidal sexual obsession.

This is my favorite of Ms. McKinney's books; different from her earlier works, it's not at all historical in the classical romance sense, but down to earth and populated with characters with the strengths and flaws of real people in contemporary times. As a result, it moves faster and with freshness. Good and evil; black, white, and shades of gray; love, lust, ugliness - it has it all, crafted a little like a modern day fairy tale. I recommend it highly!

Rating:
Summary: Fairy-Tale Quality
Review: Claire is a high powered New York attorney in self-imposed exile from her family in New Orleans, unable to come to grips with the murder of her sister and its impact on her family. She becomes entangled with a secret society which uses a lottery to offer the victims of crime their opportunity for revenge. Her life intersects with that of Liam, an FBI agent assigned to investigate the revenge ring, and a sadistic serial killer who collects souveniers from his victims. Against the backdrop of carnival New Orleans, the reader is treated to a memorable tale of good and evil, love and hate, romance and homicidal sexual obsession.

This is my favorite of Ms. McKinney's books; different from her earlier works, it's not at all historical in the classical romance sense, but down to earth and populated with characters with the strengths and flaws of real people in contemporary times. As a result, it moves faster and with freshness. Good and evil; black, white, and shades of gray; love, lust, ugliness - it has it all, crafted a little like a modern day fairy tale. I recommend it highly!

Rating:
Summary: Not disappointed
Review: When I first received this book I was disappointed because I wanted a historical novel. Ms. McKinney writes wonderful historical novels, and I wanted more of the same. I was not disappointed after reading. This book was a page turner! The hero in the story was a little cliche, but I overlooked that. Otherwise it would have been a 6 star!

Rating:
Summary: Great but not satisfying
Review: Wow, I guess I'm the only reviewer who was not pleased with this novel. When I first stated reading 'A Man to Slay Dragons', I was very impressed and had a hard time putting it down. I thought the idea of a vigilante victim's group using a twisted version of Shirley Jackson's 'The Lottery' to accomplish their goals was original, fresh, and intriguing. The characters of Liam and Claire started off normal for romance-novel fare and all in all I was happy, assured that this would be a delicious read.

This ended up falling into disappointment as I continued into further chapters. After a while, Claire's fear and nagging insecurities about Liam became increasingly irritating. A lot of times I felt like shaking the character and saying 'would you hurry up and trust him?' Not to mention that her relentless feministic dogma was making me almost want the character to die. I mean, I'm a woman and I'm all for woman power but I mean, come on! Liam, however, was no better either. Half the time I had no idea what he was talking about nor what point he was trying to make. Not to mention his ending up as being a rather chauvinistic jerk.

I also felt the resolution was way too quick and clean cut. In the end I had the feeling that these characters would never remain together. They also seemed to change their opinions and characteristics on a dime. By the end I could not help but feel like these were not the same characters I had started reading about in the beginning. Not even to start in on the unresolved questions, such as whether Claire kept her job, if Phyllis was ever caught and punished (which, from what I read, it seemed that she was not and I found this solution to be wrong), and what, all in all, truly happened to Zoe's sister.

Overall I found this novel to be sadly disappointing.