Evil Games
Angela Marsons
I didn't enjoy Evil Games, the second novel of Angela Marsons's Kim Stone series, as much as the first, Silent Scream. I can tell you exactly why -- there was not, in the main plot, any mystery. The main plot of Evil Games is about a sociopath who targets Kim. (This, by the way, is in the publisher's blurb, so I don't count it as a spoiler.) It is of course, harrowing for Kim. But I have some inside information that Kim does not. I happen to know that Kim is the hero of a series (named after her!) of 21 novels, of which this is only the second. Kim is not gonna die in book 2.
Marsons makes another choice in this novel that destroys the mystery and most of the suspense. Kim's opponent, Alex Thorne, is a point-of-view character. We are inside her head and know her every significant thought. If Marsons had left it to the reader to figure out what's going on inside Alex's head, there might have been some suspense. As it is, however, the main plot never surprises.
In fact, the burden of the main plot is a character study of Kim -- a lot is revealed about her history here -- and Alex. Indeed, in her acknowledgments Marsons writes "I began the process of writing Evil Games with the intention of representing the nature of a true sociopath." Fair enough. I only wish she had done it without sacrificing the plot and all suspense.
I qualified my remarks above with "the main plot." That's because there is a second plot, which does involve a mystery. It felt minor and mostly irrelevant, just thrown in to give Kim's team a little triumph.