Book Review: "Death Match" by Lincoln Child

Lewis and Lindsay Thorpe were the perfect couple: young, attractive, and ideally matched. But the veil of perfection can mask many blemishes. When the Thorpes are found dead in their tasteful Flagstaff living room (having committed double suicide), alarms go off in the towering Manhattan offices of Eden Incorporated, the high-tech matchmaking company whose spectacular success, and legendary secrecy, has inspired awe around the world. The Thorpes, few people knew, were more than the quintessential happy couple – they were Eden’s first perfect match.

A short time later, Christopher Lash, a gifted former FBI forensic psychologist, receives an urgent plea from Eden to perform a quick – and quiet – investigation into the deaths. Lash’s psychological autopsy reveals nothing suspicious, but inadvertently dredges up the memories of a searing personal tragedy he has kept at bay for years.

Not sure what to say about this one. Lincoln Child and Douglas Preston have entertained me well with several books they have written together, but this is a Child solo piece. I have read others that I enjoyed by Child, but this one sort of set me off. In all honesty, I only read the book as it was written by this author, not because of the story synopsis.

At first I was intrigued by the start of the book. Trying to figure out why this big company brought in a "broken down" FBI ex-profiler, and how did the company work matchmaking? As a typical Child novel, the depth of the research for the novel is outstanding. I felt way 'over my head' as the book progressed and the machinations of AI work. In all honesty, I did not even read all of the book. Just short of halfway, I began to lose interest. I couldn't get a feel for how it was going to continue, and by then, felt way out of my depth on the whole computer/AI information, though he sort of 'dumbed down' most of it. I skipped ahead to about the last 10-15% of the book, read a few pages, and skipped to the near end. At that point, I had missed the finale, but through the last chapter and the epilogue, figured out most of what happened, even if it wasn't in exact detail. Then I put it down.

Not one of Child's better novels, but I do give him credit for a decent story line, and definitely a thumbs up for the research. Overall, I think 2.5 stars is good, as I didn't hate it, but it was okay, and the half for his writing style/research.