Product Description

Want to play a game?

Minneapolis, a brutally cold autumn. And a killer is at work. Two bodies are found, two slayings that the police treat as unrelated. But games-creator Grace MacBride knows different. The murders are exact copies of of those in a game she's designing - one that already has hundreds of eager players. As the copycat killings mount up, Grace knows that she is both suspect and potential victim. And with the killer getting closer, she is drawn into a murderous game of cat and mouse ... want to play?

Want to Play? is one of Richard And Judy's Summer Reads.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #13071 in Books
• Published on: 2004-05-06
• Binding: Paperback
• 496 pages

Sunday Telegraph
'A thrilling page-turner with a nail-biting finish'

Guardian
'A fast-paced, gripping read with thrills and devilish twists'

Harlen Coben
'Outrageously suspenseful...The thriller debut of the year'

Customer Reviews

A who dunnit with no clues!
This book didn't really hold my attention (kept falling asleep whilst reading) and I wouldn't call it a page turner or a ground-breaking thriller.

All that said, I did read the story through to the end which, had it been really dire, I would not have bothered.

Sometimes the reader would like to 'solve' the crime by using clues the author has written into the tale, sort of solving it along with the good guys! My feelings were that in this story you didn't get any clues - it could have been the dog and we wouldn't have been any wiser till nearly the end (lose a star rating for that) But that's what kept me reading this tale for longer than I would take to read an average book.

Some of the writing style was actually quite funny and made me giggle at times - one of the authors if not both have a wicked sense of humour! On the downside the text at times made me stop and say to myself 'What?' Maybe they were trying for a modern way to describe some scenes but it didn't work well for me as I had to take a mental leap sometimes. I suppose it made up for the lack of clues. Other parts of the book I had to shrug my shoulders and carry on, not really understanding the jargon used. Take for example : 'Grace had tripped on a bank of floods by the time he'd made it down the three steps....' No, she didn't fall over the waterlogged safe with a load of cash in it - she turned on the garden lights!!
Another time a detective was describing his oportunity for a rare night out 'since the accident' Mental leap time - the author had previously mentioned his 8 year old daughter (unplanned pregnancy was the 'accident'). Lost another point for the descriptive style.

Don't be fooled into buying 'Monkeewrench' thinking it is another, different book - it's the USA market version of the British titled 'Want to Play?'

Powerful writing
P J Tracy is a mother and daughter writing team, Patricia and Traci Lambrecht; however, to avoid awkward sentences I'll refer to them as one author.

Tracy has a marvellous grasp of crackling dialogue, some great characters and some very moving scenes. Set in Minneapolis, it introduces us to Grace MacBride, a beautiful yet strangely damaged games-creator and local detectives Magozzi and Rolseth.

Grace discovers that two recent murders are exact copies of those in a game she's designing - the prototype is already out there on the web. And as the game has twenty differing levels, that's a total of twenty murders. The trouble is, she and her computer-whiz team are also in the frame for the murders. Her company was called Monkeewrench - which was the book's title in the US.

Somebody from their past seems to be putting a spanner in their company's works - but it's something Grace and the team won't talk about. Whatever it was, now Grace never goes anywhere without carrying a weapon, preferably two.

But the stars of the books are undoubtedly Leo Magozzi and Gino Rolseth. The detectives' banter and slant on life make for some great laughs and also some sombre moments. The cops are dedicated and cool and sound real; whether that's Chief Malcherson (who wears a suit to reflect the mood) or several essential patrolmen, they all have a distinctive voice and attitude to life. Grace's team have aliases - Roadrunner, Harley Davidson and so on - and according to traceable records they didn't exist prior to ten years ago.

Somehow the Monkeewrench game copycat murders seem linked to the death of an old couple in the church of a little Wisconsin town. It needs patient detective work and Grace's computer wizardry to get to the bottom of the case - before the deaths mount up into double figures. The ending is fast-paced and poignant.

Due to her traumatic past, Grace hasn't allowed anyone close to her for over ten years. So Magozzi's relationship with her is tentative at best, but he can't resist her. He too is one of the walking wounded, a divorced cop.

Powerful writing when it comes to death and loss and regrets.

Wish I hadnt bothered
Id read positive reviews about this book so even when it didnt start out good, I persevered. I think maybe a page or two had me interested but by the end quite frankly, I didnt care 'who dunnit'. Wish I hadnt bothered to waste my time. The book's boring.