Snakes and Ladders

Dr. Vernon Sange is an incarcerated serial killer and he appears to have intimate knowledge of another serial killer slashing his way though London. Sange won’t spill his guts to anyone but profiler Ziba Mackenzie, the same women who was responsible for having him locked up.  Make no mistake,  Sange isn’t helping the police through the goodness of his heart, he wants something in return. Silence of the Lambs. With more than a little resemblance to Silence of the Lambs and some Ted Bundy thrown in,  this book highlights what profilers have often known – serial killers make some of the best profilers themselves

So far, I've been very impressed with Ziba MacKenzie's stories and number 3 does not disappoint. Ziba faces a real baddie in the tradition of the best charming but super-scary serial killers. Ziba put Vernon Sange behind bars, but she now needs him to catch a new killer whose only calling card is a rose petal. The murders are creepy and, as much as Ziba tries, the police are nowhere near catching the killer. There's also personal drama as her relationship with her late husband's best friend gets more complicated and he starts becoming a liability. The ways that Sange manipulates and gets involved in Ziba's life are pretty creative. I loved all the twists and turns except for the final one. No spoilers but I had discarded that particular suspicion because it was so, so obvious that it could not be real, could it? If an accountant in Idaho figured it out immediately, one of the best profilers in the Yard's history would clearly have seen it coming, right? I didn't find this part believable. Anyway, the rest of the novel was so good, that I will try to forget such an oversight and chalk it up to Ziba's being distracted. 
I chose to read this book and all opinions in this review are my own and completely unbiased. Thank you, Amazon Publishing UK!

A good thriller with strong characters that hooks from the start, just as good as the first two in the series and although it can be read before you read the first two i would reccomend they are read in order,  cannit wait for number 4 to appear on Netgalley

What started seemingly to be a rehash along the lines of Silence of the Lambs changed into a reader grabbing story line keeping one intrigued to the very end.. an unmissable read!

A scary and horrific tale but thoroughly enjoyable. I could not put this book down hughly recommeneded

I really liked the cover. It is very appealing designed. The writing style is pleasant and very fluently to read. The characters are very well described and look well thought out and consistently interesting. The tension is always present. The descriptions of surroundings, feelings and scenes were also very good. The story is told pleasant and it succeeds from the first pages to dive directly into the story. The storyline as a whole is very coherent and it seems very understandable and authentic. A very fascinating story that you won't like to stop reading.

This is the third book in the Ziba MacKenzie series. Ziba is a profiler with a special forces background, she carries a lot of sadness with her as her husband Duncan was killed a few years before the events in this story. This novel has an intriguing start. Ziba is lecturing at  the FBI in Quantico whilst in London a murderer labelled the Pink Rose Killer (PRK) is stalking London for victims. Pulling the strings like a master puppeteer is Dr Vernon Sange, a cold blooded serial killer of at least 12 people and currently serving life imprisonment in HMP Wakefield, the largest high security prison in the UK. He is awaiting extradition to the USA for execution for crimes committed there. There is a connection between Sange and the PRK as Sange seems to know far more than he should which he dangles in riddles. Ziba is bright back from Quantico to help Scotland Yard detectives profile the PRK. This is a very twisty, dark story with gruesome murders which has the feel of Criminal Minds with Ziba being JJ or Emily Prentiss and I did feel as if I had stepped into an episode! The story is told by Ziba and the killer which works well. 

The characters in the book are good. I like Ziba although in this one although she drops the ball rather too often as she wrestles with her feelings for journalist Jack Wolfe. He is a really good character too and you so root for these two to make a go of things so Ziba can move on from Duncan. You learn more about Ziba and her background in this one which I enjoyed. I like the interactions and game playing between Ziba and Sange who is a former university don and so is highly intelligent and the master of manipulation. They lock horns and try to outplay each other but it has to be said that Ziba is frequently on the back foot. Sange is the snake in this story and Ziba is climbing the ladders.  DI Nigel Fingerling is just as odious as he was in previous books although some of his instincts are correct. 

Part of the story has ancient Roman connections and has links to Ancient Greek literature which I think is a really good element and quite original and this is what links Sange to the PLK. My only negatives are that some scenes feel a bit manufactured and a tad unrealistic and there are  some ‘Silence of the Lambs’ moments especially at the end. 

Overall, a good, dark psychological thriller with a dash of humour and an abundance of twists and turns that fans of the genre appreciate.

Even though this is Book #3 in the Zeba MacKenzie series, it can be read as a stand alone. I have not read the first two books, but based on Snakes and Ladders, I must! I really enjoyed this book!

I have read the other books in this series which I enjoyed greatly. I was looking forward to this and wasn't disappointed. Full of tension and a great protagonist, this kept me at the edge of my seat. Not a dull moment to be found in this book. I'm looking forward to reading more.

this book started slowly and then gradually got my attention.  strong main character and the skill in profling was interesting to me.   I never like the chapters with the killer interspersed unless the author and there is only one or two makes them more human while their actions being monstrous.  not here.   it was overall a good read and i would read more with the main character, the ending left room for a series

This is the third in the Ziba  MacKenzie series and each book is even better than the previous book. They are all extremely violent, psychological thrillers, with a deeply disturbing   and even more disturbing characters.
 I have enjoyed reading each and everyone of them. I look forward to reading the next one in the series.
Highly recommended.
With thanks to Netgalley, Pigeonhole and the publishers for the Arc,

Fantastic novel. This is the first book of Victoria’s I’ve read but am immediately going to rectify that and read the first 2 Ziba books (and hopefully the 4th will be out soon). Great story development throughout

A brilliant roller coaster of a read from the beginning, full of twists and turns and I was gripped from the very first page.

The characters were interesting and I can thoroughly recommend this book.

Thank you to Netgalley and Amazon Publishing for giving me the opportunity to read this book.

The third book of the Ziba MacKenzie series - Snake and Ladders covers the hottest topic of the moment....serial killers. Dr. Vernon Sange is in prison but he says he knows who the PRK murderer is. Picture Ziba as the Clarice to Dr. Sange's Hannibal Lector. 

This is a fun series and Ziba is a fun lead character to read. This book gave me nightmares for a few days...so I supposed that means it's a five star read. 

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Snakes and Ladders is a superb serial killer thriller by Victoria Selman. Well worth the read! Look forward to more from her.

I enjoyed this book, the short chapters mean that it is punchy and rattles along at a quick pace, which matched the urgency with which Ziba and her team have to find the killer. It is the third book in the Ziba MacKenzie series, but it can be read as a stand-alone, I haven’t read the first two and it didn’t spoil my enjoyment of this one. Ziba is a well drawn, well rounded character and generally I liked her, although I preferred the character of the love interest Jack. I expect the will they, won’t they, nature of their relationship to continue in future books and I hope they do eventually get it together, hopeless romantic that I am!

The plot is reminiscent of the Silence of the Lambs, but set on British soil. At times it was a bit too close  to Harris’ book for me, but it was different enough to keep me reading. I liked that the book focused on a profiler as opposed to a police officer, but I would have perhaps preferred a little more insight into her profiling. I did find it really interesting that Sange was American, perhaps we don’t like to think that the UK can produce serial killers of his ilk! 

Overall I enjoyed the book and will now read the first two in the series.

Silence of the lambs was and is one of my favorite movies of all time! I was super intrigued to read this since it was compared to a classic; however, it fell short for me. The story was a little boring for me. There was too much thinking dialogue with Ziba and herself. There wasn't enough action to keep me going. I liked the story and the puzzles that needed to be solved, but in the end it just left me hanging. This is a serial killer investigation type of story. There was nothing suspenseful that made me keep turning the pages.

Thank you to NetGalley for a Kindle ARC of Snakes and Ladders.

I didn't know this was the third book in the series but Snakes and Ladders held up as a standalone.

I love serial killer mysteries, more so if the protagonist is female so I was excited when my request was approved.

Ziba Mackenzie is a highly respected profiler responsible for catching the notoriously charming serial killer Dr. Vernon Sange.

When a series of ritualistic murders brings Ziba into the investigation, she is tasked to speak to Dr. Sange, who seems to have unforeseen knowledge of the murders before they occur and will only speak to the woman who caught him.

Is he working with an accomplice on the outside? Is he orchestrating the murders?

As Ziba struggles with the loss of her husband from two years ago, and trying not to fall under the charming spell of Dr. Sange, she will use her wits and skills to suss out a killer terrorizing a community and eluding law enforcement. 

I liked Ziba, but I didn't love her. I wanted to like her more. I can't quite put my finger on why I didn't like her more.

She was smart, competent, capable, but she spent far too much time making snarky comments in her head about an annoying superior. At first, it was funny; then it became redundant.

I also didn't like all the time she spent vacillating between her feelings for Wolfie and Sange's diabolical manipulation of her emotions.

Yes, he's diabolical, and she's human, so he has the upper hand, but I felt it was too easy the way he undermined her during their interviews.

I would think she would know a little better on how to handle him, considering she did catch him.

I also think the novel could have used a tighter edit, cut about 50 pages, to heighten tension and increase suspense, of which there wasn't much.

The writing was good, and there was decent character development on Ziba. I felt I understood her even though I didn't read the first two books. 

I liked the parts when she reminisced about her childhood and her father, and how she wished she and her mother had a stronger, tighter bond. 

I would recommend Snakes and Ladders to anyone interested in a serial killer mystery.

The third in the series that I have read. Great psychological thriller. Lots of twists and turns that will keep you enthralled.

This was another sterling piece of crime fiction by Victoria Selman.. .full of dark and gruesome serial killer fabulousness, and the police profiler trying to unravel the answer in a race against time!

Very well written. The plot was very clever in that you would guess the culprit but the author has you guessing until the very end.

This is the first time I have read anything from this author and I quite enjoyed it.  I didn’t know this was the third book in a series but I had no trouble keeping up with the characters.  
     In some of the reviews Silence of the Lambs is being compared to this book. I honestly didn’t think so other than the main character is a profiler who teaches at Quantico. 
     Unfortunately I figured out quite early on who one of the “bad guys” were which takes a bit away from the enjoyment of the story.  All in all I enjoyed the book and happily recommend it.  
     Thanks to NetGalley for letting me read this advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

This will go live on 4 December on the link below, and on Goodreads and Amazon:

Hi and welcome to my review of Snakes and Ladders! This is the third novel in the Ziba MacKenzie series, but I assure you it can be read as a standalone and I know that because I did. For reasons I can’t even begin to understand, I completely missed the first two books and to add insult to injury, I hadn’t even heard of Victoria Selman (gasp!). Then Snakes and Ladders started popping up all over my Twitter timeline and I stumbled across it on NetGalley. When I spotted that tagline (Psycho meets The Silence of the Lambs) I didn’t bother looking up the book nor the author, I just requested it and it was only when I was approved and went to add it on Goodreads that I noticed it was part of a series. Regulars here will know I like to read books in the right order but I didn’t think I’d have the time to squeeze in two more books before this one so I decided to give it a whirl and see what happened (living on the edge 🙃). I’m happy to report I didn’t feel like I was missing anything, I connected with Ziba immediately, despite having missed her first outings, and there’s enough background information to just step into the series without a hitch.

Ziba MacKenzie is a freelance profiler. At the beginning of the book, she’s giving a lecture in Quantico to FBI agents in training when she’s called away to London: Scotland Yard needs her help with the Pink Rose Killer, a serial killer whose MO is to remove a body part from his victim and leave a pink rose at the scene. Funnily enough, the PRK is not the main serial killer in Snakes and Ladders: the star serial killer is Vernon – The Butcher – Sange, who was apprehended a while ago thanks to Ziba, and who has contacted the police saying he has intel on the PRK but he’ll only tell Ziba.

Now, Ziba is a great protagonist. She’s smart, she’s both strong and vulnerable, she has the kind of humour that I love, rather dark and very sarcastic, and she’s always at odds with the DCI with whom she has to work the case and I loved her little retorts, even if she keeps them to herself. But my favourite character, without a doubt, was Dr Sange, a cunning man, far more charming than Hannibal Lecter ever was, messing with Ziba’s head the way Lecter did with Clarice, and then some. Move over Hannibal Lecter, move over Anson Bishop, there’s a new serial killer in town! (For the record: I’m not a serial killer groupie, I only like the fictional kind!)

By now I think I must have read an entire library of crime and psychological thrillers and quite a large subsection of serial killer thrillers at that, so I think it’s fair to say I’ve become a little jaded and the things that used to work for me don’t always cut it anymore. Snakes and Ladders made me a very happy reader because it felt unique by focusing on the behavioural science behind the attempts to apprehend a serial killer, to pre-empt him, to predict his next move, while also zooming in on the behavioural analysis of convicted killers, and why that is important. I’ve read other books featuring a profiler, but none that go this far into the actual science. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a text book in any way, but I felt like I was learning a lot while simultaneously being entertained. I find the whole profiling thing absolutely fascinating so I paid extra attention (part of me wonders whether I should have read Psychology in uni instead of Translation Studies) but even if you don’t care about behavioural analysis that much, I’m sure you can enjoy this novel too.

This is an intriguing, suspenseful read, and although I figured out who the PRK was from the start and it turned out I was right not to trust one of the other characters either, it doesn’t even matter, not even a little bit, because to me Snakes and Ladders is not a whodunnit, it’s not about revealing the who, it’s about revealing the why, it’s less about the destination and more about the journey to find out the truth and you’d better believe it’s left me hungry ravenous for more! If you’re not into open endings, don’t worry, the PRK case is neatly wrapped up, but let’s just say another character has kicked the door to the next Ziba instalment wide open, and ending the way it does, I literally CANNOT WAIT for the next Ziba MacKenzie!

Recommended, and if Mindhunter is your favourite Netflix show then this is a must read!

Snakes and Ladders is out in eBook format now, and in paperback on 17 December, don’t miss it! (Pre-)order it on Amazon here.

I hadn't read the other books in the series but I decided to read Snakes and Ladders to get a feel for the main character.  Ziba MacKenzie is a profiler who has dealt with the worst of criminals.  Unfortunately for her, one of the people who she helped put in prison wants to talk to her about a current case.  Despite her misgivings about dealing with Vernon Sange she agrees to talk with him.  She doesn't get much relevant information but gets the sense that Sange still has plans to make her life miserable in the future.  The path of the case twists and turns, eventually leading to an unlikely culprit.  The end of the book leaves the door open for book 4.  I enjoyed the book and plan on going back to read books 1 and 2.

A competent and engaging thriller, Snakes and Ladders by Victoria Selman follows profiler Ziba MacKenzie as she is forced to confront a monster from her past to catch a killer.  The book opens with Ziba giving a talk to FBI trainees, and thinking about her late husband Duncan, when the talk is rather abruptly interrupted as she is urgently recalled to the UK where police need her help to find the so called Pink Rose Killer, who has been killing and mutilating young women. While she is keen to be of assistance, she is understandably disturbed to learn that the reason for her recall is that Dr Vernon Sange, a man she helped to put behind bars for the murder of at least a dozen people claims to know the identity of the killer, and will speak only to her. Thus begins a tense game of cat and mouse as the two square off against each other , and since nothing is ever simple, Ziba knows that in order to get the information she needs, she will have to subject herself to his mind games. 
I picked up this book not realising it was the third in an ongoing series, but am pleased to say it reads perfectly well as a stand alone. The author does a good job of providing the background from the previous books in a way that does not interfere with the flow of the tense and dramatic story she is telling , and I liked the character enough to add the earlier books to my want to read list.  There are numerous twists and turns to keep a reader hooked, and plenty of red herrings to keep them guessing. The scenes between Ziba and Sange were fascinating , as the two locked horns  and tried to outmaneuver  one another, and I found Sange's character both disturbing and strangely beguiling. 
I read and reviewed an ARC courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher, all opinions are my own.

I didnt know that this book was the 3rd in a series.
You can tell there is one or 2 before it as jts a constant theme throughout the book.
I was excited to read this. However i found it very long and to be honest a bit boring. It all seemed a bit stagnant. Never moving forward. 
I had no idea where snakes and ladders fits in to this. 
Not for me unfortunately

There a lot of helpful reviews already for this serial killer thriller. I can only add that this is for you if you like this genre.

I really appreciate the copy for review!

Title: Snakes and Ladders
Author: Victoria Selman

Rating: 3  stars

Initial thoughts
When I requested Snakes and Ladders I had no idea, this s the third book in the series but some reviewers wrote it held up as a standalone novel. There are lots of hints about previous books so I couldn’t enjoy the story as much as I thought I would. 

Ziba Mackenzie is a profiler. Her job is to help the police catch serial killers. Her latest case is about a killer who removes the victims certain body parts and leaves in its place a single pink rose. There is one man who says can help but is only willing to talk to Ziba. Dr. Vernon Sange is a deranged killer and Ziba put him behind bars. 

Characters
Ziba Mackenzie is a weird woman. I didn’t particulary like her. She is supposed to be a hardened profiler but she makes the same mistakes with Sange over and over again. Sange reads people on a professional level but Ziba just starts second guessing everything she says or does instead of making Sange squirm. 
Dr. Vernon Sange is like Hannibal Lecter without the eating-body-parts thing. He is definitely the most interesting character in the book. He is a manipulative, evil sociopath but a genius one. Always gets what he wants.

All in all I liked the story enough. Selman knows how to build tension, how to twist the story so it doesn’t become boring. I only regret I didn’t know it was the third so I didn’t start with the first book. 

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for my copy,

* spoiler alert ** 3.5


A one sitting read for this one.
I've read one of the previous books,and fell straight back into the office politics of this one.
It's fast paced,has a decent bad guy,and a creepy enough killer that you get to see in flashbacks.
I was a little bored by the constant telephone tennis with Jack.
Really do have to wonder about these people who fall in love with serial killers,but this book did a good job of showing how you'd track someone down who anonomously writes to a prison.
It's clever stuff.
It's set up nicely now for the next book in series.(less)

My thanks to Amazon Publishing U.K. for an eARC via NetGalley of ‘Snakes and Ladders’ by Victoria Selman in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you also to The Pigeonhole as I also participated in their group read event for this title and was able to share my thoughts and comments with other readers as we read the daily chapters. I was disciplined throughout and didn’t read ahead in order to not spoil the fun.

This is the third in her series of police procedurals featuring profiler Ziba MacKenzie. I hadn’t read either of her previous novels but enough background was provided so I didn’t feel lost.

As the novel opens a serial killer is terrorising London, removing a body part from each of his victims and leaving in its place a single pink rose. He has been nicknamed the Pink Rose Killer (PRK) and has just sent a Ripper-style letter to Jack Wolfe, ‘Daily Telegraph’ journalist and Ziba’s close friend.

Dr Vernon Sange, a multiple murderer currently in a U.K. prison awaiting extradition to the USA, claims to know the culprit’s identity. However, he’ll only talk to profiler Ziba MacKenzie, the woman responsible for putting him away. Ziba is currently in the States teaching at the FBI academy in Quantico but she is summoned home to meet with Sange.

This was a very engaging police procedural that kept me and my fellow Pigeons guessing as to Sange’s motivations and the identity of the PRK. Lots of twists and turns.

Ziba was an intriguing character, tough yet vulnerable. I enjoyed the links to the Classics that informed the case and found it well plotted. 

Victoria Selman clearly is an admirer of Thomas Harris as like Dr. Hannibal Lecter, Sange is a charming, sophisticated, attractive, and highly intelligent opponent. The sparring between Sange and Ziba was very reminiscent of ‘The Silence of the Lambs’, which is cited in the publicity material. 

I am addicted to crime shows featuring profilers and so really enjoyed this. I already have her two previous novels in the series waiting on my Kindle and look forward to catching up with Ziba’s past cases.