Gratuitous and gross
⭐️⭐️
The Blurb:
Annabelle loves to drive. It helps her escape her world, her past. Speeding on a mountain road in the Scottish Highlands, she sees a little girl step out in front of her. She swerves to avoid her. The next thing Annabelle remembers is waking up in a dark, damp room. A voice from the corner of the room says ‘The Doctor will see you now’.
Scott is camping in the woodlands in the Scottish Highlands - but in the middle of the night, he hears something outside his tent. When he goes out to have a look, a little girl is standing among the trees, staring right at him. Scott is never seen again.
When a dismembered body is discovered, DI Monica Kennedy gets called to the scene immediately. After six months away from the Serious Crimes team, they need her back on board.
As Monica searches for the murderer, another body is found. Monica knows the signs . . . She’s on the hunt for a serial killer.
The Review:
The main problem I had with this book is that it's way more horror than it is crime thriller. And it's mediocre horror some of the time as well. I mistakenly once watched the horror film 'The hills have eyes' and this book gave me the same sickening, grubby feeling. You know the one where you wish you could take your eyeballs out and give them a good wash - yeh, that one.
So, confession time - this is the 2nd book in the DI Monica Kennedy series and I have not read the first. This story does stand up on its own, although it refers back to the first book so often, that you'll find yourself irritated by it. It's enough to know that our main character has already had one very traumatic case, and some subsequent time off, so this case throws her back in the deep end.
There are some moments in this book that are particularly visceral. (Think limbs being removed...) I am not particularly squeamish, although if I am going to be given gore, I want the book to be creepy enough to justify it. For me the narrative around the gore just wasn't strong enough. I felt the evil characters perpetrating these crimes weren't fleshed out enough to really be horrifying. Also the contrast between these moments of horror and the procedural police investigation are quite stark. It felt jarring and the investigation moved really slowly.
The writing itself is actually quite strong (I know, I've been really negative up till now - but here I mean the style of writing), and this is clearly an author that can write. Most of the police team were well defined, distinct characters, especially the protagonist. The best part of this book was the descriptions of the remote Scottish landscape. We really get the feeling for how desolate and isolated it is, and how unforgiving an environment it is.
Ultimately, however, this was a book that really wasn't for me. I wasn't expecting quite so much horror, from what is billed as a crime thriller. But if you;re after a more gory Detective thriller, then this might be right up your alley!
Thanks to the Publisher and Netgalley for this preview copy in return for an honest review.