Review: Just Watch Me

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Just Watch Me Just Watch Me by Jeff Lindsay
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I wanted to like this more. When Darkly Dreaming Dexter was released I loved it, and told all my friends to read it. After all, not only was it an excellent suspense story, but Dexter had a moral compass. He'd promised his stepfather that when he got the urge to torture and kill, he'd use it to take out the trash--evil people who prey on the weak, and damage society.

Riley Wolfe is missing that moral compass. While I enjoyed the caper aspect of the book, I couldn't feel much for the amoral protagonist who is perfectly willing to murder and harm people who stand in his way. people who would interfere with his heist. Not just bad people, not just the ones who prey on the weak.

To his credit, Jeff Lindsay points out this flaw in Wolfe's character, many times. And yet just as one character at the end rejects Wolfe for his sociopathic tendencies, I'm not sure I would want to read more books about this master thief. Riley Wolfe reminded me of Patricia Highsmith's Tom Ripley, but without the same cunning charm.

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