Firstly, a trigger warning is required for this book - though the synopsis is pretty though it does seem apt.

It's like an accident on the side of the road .... you can't help but look as you pass by. I enjoyed this on the whole but did lose the main threads of the story sometimes.

I found this book very unbelievable. Some parts of the book was far fetched. Other than those areas, it was an ok read. Thanks to Netgalley, the author and the publisher for the arc of this book in return for my honest review. Receiving the book in this manner had no bearing on this review.

Thankyou to NetGalley, BooksGoSocial and the author, Joseph Lewis, for the opportunity to read a digital copy of Caught In A Web in exchange for an honest and unbiased opinion.
I thought this book provided a good, though disturbing, read. The storyline was well thought out and written with well developed characters. 3.5 stars.
Worth a read.

Disturbing and uncomfortable book describing, at length the impact of life involving heroin and fentanyl..

For instance, High School children have overdosed and been found dead and end up thrown to the side of the road. So, we end up with drug warfare and how three detectives are charged with rooting out the drug ring, the drug lords, and the consequences.

Not for me, but well written. Let's hope UK streets do not end up like this!

This is the most depraved and disturbing book i have ever read.

It is in my opinion a bad book, portly constructed, unbelievable in content and parts of it were simply strange.
We start with a introduction to so many characters you need pen and paper to try and work out who is who. They all live together all call the same two people mother and father but they are not necessarily related. they all sleep together, kiss and touch in a most unappealing way. They all have a past that the readers introduced to piecemeal. It makes the first third of the book feel like the second in a series without having had the benefit of reading the first.

George "speaks" to his dead Grandfather - at the ripe old age of around 15 he has killed several people and will in the course of the book kill more whilst the police look on leaving him to do their work.
Mixed into all this is a separate story line about deaths relating to drugs.

The whole is unbelievable, fragmented and frankly disturbing.
As I had received a copy from net galley I struggled woman fully to get through this book but i won't be looking for any more from this author

this book is a bit hard to read because of the context. Drugs, gangs, death the whole works is in this book. It is there are way too many people in this book. I kind of got lost lost.

There is a lot to unpack with this novel and my opinion about it. According to the blurb, there is a drug ring entangled in a high school and controlled by a gang, a gang member on a mission for revenge, the boy he wants to take revenge upon, and the detectives trying to solve the case. That was all very interesting, but the book takes about 150 pages to start fulfilling that blurb. Everything beforehand is just setting up the scene and the characters. The actual action takes at best three chapters towards the end of the novel. Not only does it feel like the narrative starts way to early, I also felt like I was missing a part one, in which some more awesome action would have been shown (but here, it is only confusingly referenced - what is missing is an audience stand-in to explain it to).

Now, while I was not particularly invested in any of the characters and did not feel for them, there were some interesting story lines and beginnings of ideas that were explored there. However, I must say that there are entirely too many characters - I lost tracks of all of the brothers and their biological or otherwise connection to each other. It was a happy big dysfunctional family, yes, but a) was it confusing, and b) what purpose did the huge mass of can-not-keep-them-apart-boys serve? As a side note: they were all weirdly familiar with each others (naked) bodies and pda - I was just waiting for the sexual abuse story line to reveal itself, which can never be a good feeling. And in terms of the police investigation, let me just say that I would have fired all of these detectives for their serious misbehavior, especially in terms of confidentiality and risking teenagers' lives.

For the good stuff: I loved the Native American subplot and characters, including their believes and customs. That was great and unexpected in a novel about Mexican drug cartels and crime. Another thing I absolutely loved was the pacing of the story: especially in the beginning, there are two separate story lines in alternating chapters. One is really fast-paced and full of action, the other spans multiple months and is slower, relaxed, calm, lovely. Alternating between them at such a pronounced switch in pace contrasts them (and their respective characters) strongly. Reading it feels like a movie cutting back and forth between two differently scored and lit scenes. It builds up momentum and the reader just waits for them to collide. And that was brilliantly done and a really great reading experience. I also think that the ideas for the characters and plots were great, I just was not a big fan of how it ended up being presented.

Loved the quality and depth of the characters. Found myself thinking of them long after finishing the book. Writing it tight, action scenes tense. A superb page-turner. I like this author.

It IS a story, but filled with a lot of detours and nonsense. Too much killing and too strange setting.

MS-13, heroin, Fentanyl, revenge, death .... one would think this story was ripped out of today's headline news. But this is fiction .... and it takes the reader into dark places that most of us have never seen and never want to.

Junior High and High School kids have been found dead, like litter thrown to the side of the road. The drug trade is active and busy. The kids are dead of overdoses. Someone is cutting in on the MS-13 business and no one wants a drug war. But there's more than just drugs at risk here. The man MS13 sends to shut down the interlopers into their business and teach them a lesson wants way more than that. He wants one particular teenage boy who killed his cousin.

Three detectives .... Jamie Graff, Paul Eiselmann, and Pat O'Connor .... are charged with finding the drug ring, the drug lords, and putting an end to them. What they never imagined was how far down the roots are in the schools, students, and even staff.

When it comes to kids and illegal drugs, I cannot actually say I "liked" this book. Vicious gangs, school bullying, graphic violent scenes and dead and dying children, and the sexual escapades of young people make this an uncomfortable read... especially to a mother of now-grown sons.

It's like an accident on the side of the road .... you can't help but look as you pass by. This was a well written, riveting read ... one that's hard to put down once started.

Many thanks to the author / Books Go Social / Netgalley / The Crime Book (FB) for the digital copy of this crime thriller. Opinions expressed here are unbiased and entirely my own.

I loved this book, even though it was uncomfortable at times. This is very well written with many characters. A lot of in-depth history of characters. Very heartbreaking at times with the graphic killing content. If you can't take bloody situations, you may not want to read this. Drugs are a bad scene, in this book it is mostly about middle and high school kids getting caught up with drugs and bullies and a lot of death. I would recommend this book, it does have a great story line. The end threw me off cause I had no idea who was at the root of all this turmoil. Great Job by the Author.


Thank you Net Gallery and BooksGoSocial for the opportunity to review.


Cherie'

Reading like a news item than a novel a hard hitting of two cops/child overdoses, and the hidden or ignored enemy that is MS-13. Prepare to enjoy and be EDUCATED of what is living in our neighborhoods.

I normally avoid books where children are the victims but I thought I would be OK with this one but I admit I struggled at times with some of the subject matter.

Middle and high school children are dying from overdosing on heroin and fentanyl. This sounds like the beginning of a normal good guy/ bad guy crime thriller but it is a whole lot more intricate than that!

At times I found it hard to follow this story because it is extremely involved and a bit confusing. I found that frustrating but persevered and did enjoy the book on the whole. The story was very well imagined but for me lacked a slight bit in the execution because there was just so much information conveyed. Overall though a good book that has a great storyline.

This was a really unique story! It was so ambitious and involved that I felt it could have been broken into 3 separate novels. There was a lot of back story to the characters and it was a bit difficult to keep them straight. The crime/drug portion of the story was confusing and the detectives and police officers were harder to relate with. The family dynamics were interesting and definitely held my attention. There is a lot of violence and discussion of prior sexual assaults so I'd add a trigger warning for sensitive readers. That was a crucial piece to the overall plot so it was necessary to explain the histories.

Thanks to Net Galley and publishers for an advanced reader's copy of this story in exchange for my honest review.

caught in a web by Joseph Lewis.
The bodies of high school and middle school kids are found dead from an overdose of heroin and fentanyl. The drug trade along the I-94 and I-43 corridors and the Milwaukee Metro area is controlled by MS-13, a violent gang originating from El Salvador. Ricardo Fuentes is sent from Chicago to Waukesha to find out who is cutting in on their business, shut it down and teach them a lesson. But he has an ulterior motive: find and kill a fifteen-year-old boy, George Tokay, who had killed his cousin the previous summer.
a very good read. I liked the story. I liked the ending too. 4*.