Interesting twists in a solid but self-indulgent performance. - Rated 
Journalist and wannabee novelist joins a writers circle to try and give himself a jolt towards writing the next big thing. At the circle he meets various interesting and unsettling characters but specific among them is Angela, who tells a compulsive, spine-tingling tale about a shadowy figure called The Sandman. Gradually, Angela's terrifying story begins to echo life and the group splits. Patrick writes a best-selling novel by stealing some of Angela's ideas, and suddenly weird things begin to happen. One by one the members of the circle begin to disappear and Patrick starts fearing for his life and the life of his son.
This is a well crafted story with several interesting twists and turns. One of them I got straight away, but the other came as a surprise. By making his protagonist a wannabee novelist and then a best selling novelist in truth, Andrew Pyper explores what makes creative writing types tick. The answers are not always pleasant or edifying, but definitely believable. I didn't warm to Patrick Bishop - I probably wasn't meant to. He's self-indulgent, aloof and superior. I can say categorically that I won't be attending any of the author's book signings. One cannot help wondering how much of Patrick Bishop the writer is a reflection of the attitudes of Andrew Pyper the writer. Does life imitate art? Does art imitate life? (which is part of the novel's theme). Or neither? Not quite 4 stars.
A good thriller - Rated 
The Killing Circle is a fine thriller. I found it to be an easy read. The narration was easy to follow and was never overblown. The story starts off well, with a gripping opening that was well told. The scene unfolded nicely as the author Andrew Pyper slowly revealed the details piece by piece.
The overall plotting and pacing is expertly done, and I particularly liked the way it jumped back and forth in time. In the wrong hands that can be disastrous but it worked well here.
And I really liked the cover, which conveys the mood of the novel perfectly.
Several hours of my life that I'll never get back - Rated 
When I picked up this book, my initial impression was that it was a "holiday book" - something that I'd take on holiday with me, and read on the beach in a day. And I wasn't wrong - much of this book comes across as your stereotypical crime thriller. There's a tough detective, a serial killer, a child in peril, etc etc etc. So far, so good.
The plot starts well: I particularly enjoyed the opening plot device, with a shocking event in the first chapter, with subsequent chapters taking us back in time so that we can see how the story unfolds to lead us up to that event.
There are some minor annoyances with the writing style, especially the use of one-word sentences and one-sentence paragraphs. These are clearly designed to convey emotions or senses.
They quickly become irritating.
Irksome. Infuriating.
Then we get to the concluding chapters, and this is where I start to have a real problem with this book. It's difficult to explain without giving away the ending, but I'll have a go. The only character that has really been fleshed out is the narrator - everyone else is just a cipher - the tough cop, the scary giant, the mysterious author. So when you get to the "twist", you're left feeling empty. I had a definite sense of "Oh. Is that it? So what?". It was difficult to care about the main character, and because you have no real sense of what drives and motivates the secondary characters, the ending is a huge let-down.
This is a real shame: there is much about this book that I like. If you'd asked me my opinion two-thirds of the way through, I would have told you that the central question - is this really happening or is the narrator having some form of breakdown - was being handled extremely well, and you were definitely left wondering where the story was going to go.
There's a quote on the cover of my copy from Harlan Coben: Andrew Pyper should consider himself lucky, because I simply don't think that he's in the same league.
Fairly dull murder story - not much horror... - Rated 
I must admit that I am not a fan of what appears (from the cover) to be a horror story. But this isn't one. There are, to be fair, a couple of gory bits, but nothing to make you hide under the covers, or jump when the wind slams a door outside.
A fairly average detective story (without any real detectives), just a novelist (well, plagiarist) who happens to be meet a range of unlikely psychos and nutters in his "cosy" writers circle. I couldn't get worked up about the main character - not sure if I cared whether he lived or died... and the rest seemed to be two dimensional copies of various odds and ends from b-movie horror films.
Easy, enjoyable read. - Rated
I quite enjoyed the Killing Circle and I was interested to read that an option had been taken on it to be made into a film as while I was reading it I kept thinking that it was perfect horror film material.
I didn't think that it was that original, but it had a couple of twists that kept me reading to the end. A few times it seemed about to go into supernatural territory, but then it came back to the main story with the too often used "just a dream/vision" excuse, which was a shame as that would have given it a nice edge over the normal "serial killer" tale. The main character is fairly well fleshed out but most of those around him are quite two dimensional and I never really felt any empathy with any of them. The "revelation" at the end I felt was unnecessary and didn't add anything to the story. Still, that aside, it was a fairly easy and enjoyable read and I'll probably go and see the film if it is made.
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