Review: Der lautlose Schrei

Der lautlose Schrei by Andreas Suchanek
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This review is for the first series, containing 12 ebooks (which are not all listed on Goodreads yet).
The first 4 volumes where available for free, probably as a teaser and I had them since October 2015 until my mother read them and said they where rather good, then I bought the rest.

The single volumes are novellas, with a supposed reading time of 90 min. give-or-take
As most, if not all, end on a really heavy cliffhanger, I really did not like to read it in serial form, waiting two weeks or more for the next volume.
Instead I started after the last volume (12) was published and bought all the rest, which was rather expensive, for these short ebooks. Also I was surprised that no subscription service with auto-delivery was offered (I think this format screams for something like this, maybe I just did not find it, but even then it is the fault of the publisher not to advertise it).

Also there are a few short, chapter-like ebooks to be found free as additional material.
Like on a DVD / Blu-ray they contained cut scenes, sometimes offering more background, so I suggest reading them.

While the series started like a book for children, in the later books it became sometimes brutal, and romance (incl. gay) was stronger featured, giving this a YA feel, going to adult.
This was appealing for me, as I first thought it was on level of Enid Blyton or some such writing.
But some of the problems are about life-or-death-situations and people die or get injured.
What I really liked was the use of up-to-date technology, SmartPhones, Digital Cameras, Tablets, WiFi. Even the hacking was described in a realistic way - something I often miss in other books, either it gets blown out the realm of possibility, doing things which are not possible or it gets described wrong (and faulty). Not here, this is as good as it gets, and you have the feeling the author knows what he is doing.

The later books I rate 5 stars, with the beginning ones 4 star, some single volume may bore a bit, but the entire series, read fast, is a rather good page-turner. Also enough twists I did not see coming and I did not guess too early who the main baddie would be.

In the end, not all is solved and some big questions remain open, leading the way to a second series.
So far I am not too sure, wether I will read the single volumes in one sitting (after all are published) or as they are published, given that in the afterword the main author writes about problems which led to more than two weeks between the volumes that was planned.

Highly recommended as the whole series, and I would advise buying all books at once, regardless that they are pricy. Cannot wait for the next season of this series!

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