By the end of the book I felt I had just ploughed through rather than enjoyed it. I will say it was very different from other murder stories I have read but that didn’t mean it entertained me because it didn’t. One thing I noticed and was irritated by was the overuse of exclamation marks but I though that was just me being grammar obsessed but funnily enough I’ve just read another review where this point was made too. However when I properly read all my correspondence regarding this issue I see the published book will have no exclamation marks so I apologise if this seemed a criticism when it actually was my mistake.
My score is based on my level of enjoyment which is obviously subjective. I found the book too dark and I did not enjoy this peek into the author’s mind.

This was painful to read, I didn't like the guy, how he spoke or what he did. It horrifying to believe there are people out there and its equally horrifying how well they hide in plain sight. My own experience with attorneys doesn't do much to make me think this is fiction-

If it's true, it's horrible. If its a novel, I worry about the imagination of the author, glad he doesn't live nearby.
Aside from the awfulness of the story, the writing is a bit erratic. There is no narrative flow.

Sorry, this was just not for me.

Publisher’s description: How-to Kill Handbook for normal people

"Did I really do all of it? Yes, I did. All of it. But there’s no telling. Not straight up. I’d get thirty-to-life."

The real-life diary of ‘Calvin Loch’, a New York lawyer who takes the law into his own hands and murders a man with good reason.

This true-crime memoir catalogues the events that push an attorney to the edge. From office politics to shady dealings, from being love-struck to killing ‘justly’, this first-hand account is a chilling exposé of how a white-collar murderer gets away with it.

The verdict: crimes don’t warrant punishment if done by a balanced ‘bad man’ who believes that he’s doing good.

The author remains at large.

**********
Ugh!

I have read true crime in the past and been completely pulled in by books about Charles Manson and the Zodiac killer. That’s what made me request this title. This book is like neither of those. This book isn’t even what the publisher describes.

“Killer’s Bible” by Calvin Loch (a supposed pseudonym) is stream-of-consciousness mental vomit told in the first person by a sociopath and misogynist who apparently is a lawyer who feels the need to take the law into his own hands. The vigilante murder that he supposedly committed takes place at the very end of the book, and the chapters leading up to it give absolutely no information to back up Calvin’s claims that his victim is a horrible person who needed to be brought to justice.

Chapter after chapter, we see Calvin lusting after his law clerk, digging glass into his leg to keep “The Surge” in check, rambling about his urges. And apparently he changed enough of the details to protect himself (and his clients) from discovery, so really how much of this is real and how much is fiction? My take is that this is a work of fiction that the author thinks is edgy and believes has a better chance of being published if presented as a memoir.

I recently received an email from “Calvin,” which is really sent by his publishers according to the small print.

“Thanks for accessing a free copy of Killer’s Bible on Netgalley in exchange for an honest review when the book launches on 1 March.

“Statistics to date:
189 people downloaded Killer’s Bible.
Only 6 people are male.
What does this mean?

“From the reviews so far, some female readers dislike my message. Such a contrast from publishing on the dark net. Nevertheless your views are valid and genuinely appreciated despite that a trick has been missed. I never cried over what I have done and remain unrepentant but I cried over the hurtful reviews. I have killed but I am human. America has the death sentence and, as a participant in society, you agree with killing.

“Today, a funny thing! A friend lost $40,000 to a building contractor who ran away with his money a year ago. He and his wife are bankrupt and lost their honeymoon. His wife now suffers depression. My friend went to a lawyer who also wanted to screw him. One night a man knocked on his door. A big man. Ex-military. He says: ‘I heard what happened. Let’s go’. The ex-military man tracked down the building contractor. My friend watched the ex-military warn the contractor that he would be maimed if he didn’t pay back my friend. Today my friend got $30,000. My friend is a man of peace but now understands there’s goodness in ‘bad people’. I feel exonerated.

“Can I request that morality be put aside in judging Killer’s Bible and that virtue doesn’t creep in under different guises, per the Warning in the book?

“Feel damned, so publish! Fine for me, but there’s a team of people behind the publication of Killer’s Bible who need it to succeed. You are part of the literati. It’s for the authorities, not book reviewers, to bring me to justice.”

Clearly, I agree with most of the other women he indicates didn’t like the book. However, it has nothing to do with morality. I just think it’s poorly written drivel that I wouldn’t recommend to anyone. If the team of people behind this publication NEED it to succeed, they should start looking for another title because this isn’t going to launch their careers.

Run away from this one...far far away. I would rate it 0 stars if I could.

Thanks to NetGalley and BooksGoSocial for a free advance copy in exchange for an honest review. This title will be available on March 1, 2020.

This complex indie thriller highlights the dilemma which faces so many debut authors. Write something stylish, provocative, imaginative and challenging and you may never connect with an audience who would appreciate it. Write a Jack Reacher clone or a domestic drama gussied up as a ‘psychological thriller’ and you stand a better chance of selling some books.

But if the former could find an agent and be promoted by one of the big five publishing houses then it could easily stacked up on the ‘contemporary literature’ shelf, entered for obscure awards and gushed over by the self-perpetuating clique of mainstream media critics.

Killer’s Bible kinda falls into this category. It’ll be too difficult for many casual readers; a seriously twisted stream of consciousness. Imagine American Psycho meets Dexter… sort of. Only it’s darker than Dexter, a veritable torrent of black-hearted bile.

This ambitious ‘memoir’ takes us inside the mind of a hopeless inadequate, a go-nowhere lawyer working in a small town on tedious cases of no consequence for his family firm. Fuelled by his self-loathing, his frustration and rage build to the point where his meticulously constructed form of self-harm no longer contains them, and he lashes out when ‘The Surge’ can’t be suppressed any longer.

Told in the first person with a seemingly random timeline, it’s hard to know what’s real and what’s fantasy in Calvin’s world. He claims to have murdered his older brother, beats up on a teenager at the mall and seethes with unrelenting rage at the average joes who surround and oppress him. But Calvin crumbles whenever he’s called out by his colleagues or rivals. To them he’s a weirdo, hostile and unpredictable – and their interactions revolve around necessity, disgust, curiosity and sympathy.

The author evokes a genuinely unpleasant atmosphere that permeates his protagonist. Calvin feels unclean, tawdry and sleazy; a profound misanthrope, scornful of everyone he encounters. He can’t relate to anyone on a personal level and is the very definition of sexual frustration. He continually misinterprets his interactions with women, objectifies his female colleagues, and perceives his assistant only in an erotic context.

If you’re looking for a conventional narrative, a coherent plot with a mystery and a resolution – well, you won’t find it here. The finale is frustratingly ambiguous; if this book starts in the middle then it ends in the middle as well. At times the hectoring, self-indulgent monologue becomes tiresome and repetitive – but there’s an irresistible thread of intrigue which kept me coming back to the narrative.

One really irritating point: the author uses far too many exclamation marks - but I understand that's been fixed in the publication edit...

One thing is certain; after reading this you’ll never be sure about what’s going through the mind of any lawyer you may meet…

7/10

I was very interesting in reading Killer’s Bible because of the idea of seeing how and what a sociopath thinks and sees life. However, I was pretty disappointed in the writing of this book. The writing style felt like a short staccato that left me a little confused. This book left me feeling indifferent and frankly a little annoyed.

I received a copy from BooksGoSocial via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Killers Bible is a very muddled, diluted, altered retelling of true events by a killer still free and everything about the event has been altered so that nothing can be traced back to him. This is the tale of his first (maybe) kill and what turned him from lawyer to lawless.
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be inside the brain of an incel, well this is the book for you. This is 220 pages of someone’s dark depraved fantasy played out on paper for all the world to read. There is something about the writing that reminds me of 50 Shades, although I never actually finished that book.
There is a lot of inner monologue going on that flip flops between self deprecating and ego inflammation leading me to think the narrator is on the cusp of a personality split, which I honestly feel is how this book is meant to be read. It’s the months that lead up to the life altering moment when underrated, uninspired Calvin found his calling, killing. I had a hard time keeping track of what was going on due to the constant time hops and footnotes/notations, it was quite disjointing. I also had a hard time keeping up with the language changes. There were a lot of terms, and verbiage that wouldn’t be used by someone from North America. Honestly there was just too much bouncing around for me and not much cohesion.
I wanted so much to like this book. I love thrillers, I watch every crime show that exists. This was just too discombobulated for me. I have to give it 1 star for the idea of it. Outside of that there isn’t a saving grace for this one. My apologies to the author...please don’t kill me. 😅

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I didn't like this book at all. When I read the synopsis I thought it was going to be a tongue in cheek sort of book about how to get away with murder from the point of view of a murder. When I made it a little more than halfway through the book and the protagonist hadn't even murdered anyone I was done trying to plod though. The punctuation in this book included a lot of exclamation marks which I didn't think were necessary to the story, and once I started to notice how often they came up I couldn't stop noticing. It really sounded like a much better book than it turned out to be. The location of the book was also very confusing, I don't know if they author did that on purpose so that the reader couldn't track the "killer" but in the long run I was just irritated and confused.

I'd like to thank netgalley.com and BooksGoSocial for allowing me the opportunity to read this book for free in exchange for an honest review.

I did not know what to think of this book. It was quite odd to me. I almost gave up several times. Not very believable, but creepy in itself.

Quite the interesting read. I wasn't too fond of the writing style, if I"m being completely honest. The main character reminded me a bit of American Psycho - narcissistic and annoying.

A disturbing novel that demonstrates one never knows what lurks just beyond the surface. The unhinged writing style takes you spiraling into the mind of a man battling his inner demons while struggling to maintain the facade of an upstanding attorney. It's raw. It's tense. It's hard to follow at times. And it will leave you with many questions.
*Thank you to NetGalley and Calvin Loch for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Thankyou to NetGalley, BooksGoSocial and the author for the opportunity to read an advanced readers copy of Killer's Bible in exchange for an honest and unbiased opinion.
I was intrigued by the premise of the storyline. Unfortunately, I felt it failed to deliver. I really struggled to finish this book.
Not for me.

The concept behind this book is very intriguing. It is, of course, impossible to know if the anonymous author is really a killer or if this memoir is really fiction. Either way, I was so intrigued that I pushed this to the front of my very long TBR list.

Sadly, Killer’s Bible was anything but an interesting read. The rambling narrative reveals nothing notable aside from the author’s misogyny and apparent love for exclamation marks. There are also some odd inconsistencies. For example, the writing is in UK English and everything about it sounds British. Except for the fact that one of the characters mentions ICE, despite that being a US only term. In the UK, they call it IE. So, where exactly is this story set? Who knows?

I tried to get through this entire book, but I just couldn’t. The writing style and story itself failed to pull me in at all. I felt nothing for anyone in the book other than a detached sense of annoyance. Everything about the book felt detached, in fact. And maybe that’s proof that it was written by a sociopath without any empathy. I DNF’ed this at 27%.