Tuesday, July 23, 2024

Feedback Request



Dear agent

I am seeking representation for my thriller ALL THE MEMORIES COME TO KILL (89,000 words.)

Jack Foster, British accountant extraordinaire, [When you decide to make your main character an accountant, you have to do more than add "extraordinaire" to his job title to hook your reader.] is tired of busting the books of the Hong Kong Triad. [I don't know if busting the books means managing the books or cooking the books or something else.] Now he’s starting a new job in Los Angeles while waiting for his wife, Mara, to wrap up their affairs. Alone and lonely, he develops debilitating nightmares of a woman being tortured to death, her face masked by shadows. When his shrinks can’t help, he dulls the nightmares with alcohol and is fired from his job. [He just moved to LA and he already has more than one shrink?] 

Desperate to shape up before Mara arrives, Jack scours the internet for a way to cure his nightmares. He’s surprised to notice a series of similar murders spanning the globe, the most recent one only a few miles from his Chinatown condo. [I Googled "How to cure nightmares," and there was nothing about any worldwide murder conspiracies. Any accountant who doesn't know how to properly use Google is not extaordinaire in my book. Posing as a reporter, Jack digs into the local underworld, finding rumors of a vicious Triad enforcer newly arrived from Hong Kong. When Jack sets up surveillance on a Triad sweatshop, [This seems unreasonable for an accountant, but I forgot that he's an accountant extraordinaire.] he confirms the enforcer is the torturer in his dreams, but is forced to kill a gang member in self-defense. [Not clear what the part after the "but" has to do with the part before the "but."]

Now the police are after Jack. The Triad is right behind. And the woman in his dreams is growing more familiar with each sleepless night. Jack really needs to find some big guns, a good lawyer, and an even better shrink. ["even" better suggests his current shrink is pretty good, but you earlier said his shrinks can't help.] That and convince Mara to stay in Hong Kong until he can sort this out.

Now, if only she’d answer her damn phone.


Notes

This was going to be a new query critique, but then I realized we'd already seen two versions of it under a different title, and only two fake plots had come in anyway, so here is the most recent version, and the author would like feedback on this new one.

This isn't bad, but comparing it to the previous version, I'm wondering if there've been major changes in the plot, or just in what parts of the plot you're revealing in the query.

I don't think the title was part of the problem in the other versions.


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