The 9th Girl

Not Fond of Narrator, Characters Sterotypical

Zombie Doe, a young girl who had been tortured and was dead or nearly dead by New Years Eve, is thrown from the trunk of a dark sedan into the path of a party limousine. If she wasn't dead before she certainly was after she fell into a snarl of holiday traffic. Thus begins another of the Nikki and Sam serial killer adventures set in midwinter Minnesota.

Pros: Hoag is a competent writer so I don't regret buying and listening to this novel.

Cons: This is a narrator that I am not familiar with and I don't particularly care for his reading style. His female voices are particularly annoying.

The characters are lacking in development. I really had no emotional attachment to the kids (and Hoag generally does kids well) or to any of the victims. Usually there is a bit of ambiguity about the adult characters in her previous books leading to suspense, but it was clear right off who the bad guys were.

I also think that Hoag made a mistake making this a "message" story. There was a theme involving bullying in high school that sometimes had me skipping pages. I would cheerfully have turned most of the kids over to the serial killer. Georges St. Pierre got mentioned a lot and I finally broke down and googled him while writing this.

I missed the Sam and Tinks' (Nikki) cohesiveness as a Homicide partnership present in most of the other books. Tinks and Sam both seemed tired. The numerous references to the daughter that Sam gave up to his ex-wife as a infant made me wonder if this was foreshadowing a future book.

I don't regret the time I spent reading this book, but I'm certainly not going to reread it like I have many of her prior suspense novels.

38 of 39 people found this review helpful

Tami Hoag wrote this...

I am a Tami Hoag fan. Read most of her novels and really looked forward to her latest. What a disappointment! can't believe she wrote this novel that seemed to me to be a poor summer read. no intrigue, character study, or personal relationships trials and tribulations. the narrator was a sleeper, who had a metronome cadence that put me to sleep. I tried but could not finish this book. Tami what happened???

27 of 30 people found this review helpful

Juvenile and trite

I suppose there is some demand for a book about a tough-but-gentle mom/cop who loves her children but hates people who mutilate and murder innocent-but-misunderstood teenage girls, but I didn't realize I was contributing to it when I plunked down my credit towards this supposed mystery/suspense/thriller.
I'm frankly baffled by the good reviews this book has gotten, so I assume there is an appetite for these ingredients:
1: A corpse nicknamed Zombie Doe by the Minneapolis Police Force, because she looked like a zombie bouncing out of the trunk of a speeding car.
2: A curmudgeonly cop with an estranged daughter about the same age as Zombie Doe and a penchant for introspection.
3: A conflicted female cop who frets she works too hard and long for society at the expense of her fractured family
4: A conflicted female cop's teenaged son who thinks his mother works too long and hard at his expense, but shows real grit in the face of bullying and makes his mother proud because he's actually a great kid even if he's a free thinker and not one of the popular kids.
5: A self-centered mother of a troubled teen-aged girl who cares more about herself than her daughter (Imagine how that's going to end up!).
6: A diabolical serial killer.
7: A psychologist with a weakness for troubled teenaged girls and their mothers.

The recipe this book seems to follow is to combine these ingredients (along with a pinch of schmaltz and maybe a dash of self-righteousness ) and just shake and serve.
More predictable than mysterious, and more pedantic than suspenseful, this audiobook was about as thrilling as a Public Service Announcement.

32 of 36 people found this review helpful

Not one of T Hoag's finer efforts!

What disappointed you about The 9th Girl?

The book was incredibly boring, especially in the beginning. Long, lengthy descriptions, "pages and pages" that did not advance the plot at all. Might have worked better reading as a book so I could skip pages - hard to do with a "book on tape".

Any additional comments?

I almost bailed on this book numerous times. Ultimately the last quarter of the book was pretty good.

12 of 13 people found this review helpful

Teenage Behavior 101

If you could sum up The 9th Girl in three words, what would they be?

Great character study

What was one of the most memorable moments of The 9th Girl?

One of the poems the deceased wrote was heartbreaking

Which scene was your favorite?

At the auditorium

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

Bullying at its Best (Or Worse)!

Any additional comments?

I am a middle and high school teacher and would love for all parents and teens to read this book. I've never seen such accurate, spot on descriptions of teen behaviors WITH reasons why, as I've read in this book. Ms Hoag gets right inside their heads and hearts of kids today. Although this was a good mystery with twists and turns that kept it interesting, I really was impressed with her teen characters and their behaviors and reasons for them. Bullying, secrets, being different, trying to fit in-all struggles for kids today. I liked it because it was a good mystery but I think mothers and fathers of teens would learn something from it too-namely what is going on in their child's world today which is far different than theirs! (By the way, schools would never use this book because of "gasp" some sexual content inferred, but never described)

5 of 5 people found this review helpful

A Great Team

Sam Kovac and Nikki Lyska make a great detective team, Kovak is an old school, loaner, sleuth and Syska is a younger, divorced mother of two. Both are flawed but their flaws only add to their charm, they fit together and offset each other at the same time. Tami Hoag did an outstanding job of making this a stand alone book while keeping it intriguing enough to make me want to start with the first book in the series. The relatability of the characters and the crisscrossing threads of the mystery, helped to keep the pace up and the story interesting.

There is a zombie girl, a serial killer and a kidnapping. What more could you want from an entertaining crime thriller. David Colacci always dose a fabulous job narrating, his voice is perfect for Kovac and even added to Lyska's personality.

4 of 4 people found this review helpful

Not for me

I couldn't get into this book and had trouble enjoying the narration - ended up abandoning the book a third of the way.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

Very good! I liked it very much.

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Yes, Tami Hoag's books are always good.

What about David Colacci’s performance did you like?

Easy to listen to, he's very articulate without being boring.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

Extremely Enjoyable Work.

What a wide range of reviews!

Not having read this author before, I am glad I didn't just stop at the first three or four reviews for I liked this book. I am thrilled I took a chance.

It's a police story that I found somewhat believable. It's tough being a working mother, especially of teenagers. I found this to be very realistic of that without being too whinny. Very plausible. The story was engaging in a way that kept my attention to the bitter end. I am looking forward to reading more of the author's work.

The narrator did a decent job - I don't get the beef.

7 of 9 people found this review helpful

Don't Give Up

I would advise listeners not to give up on this story. It appears to be a little confusing in the beginning with an inference of being a story about a 'zombie.' But, it is not. It took me several chapters to really get a grasp of the storyline. But when I did, I found it to be very interesting. The people involved seemed to be very real and ones that were truly identifiable. I found myself thinking, 'I know people like this.' Unfortunately, toward the end, it became a little too graphic for my taste; but I enjoyed this book.

7 of 9 people found this review helpful