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A killer the tabloid press call The Birthday Boy has been kidnapping girls for years, a few days before their 13th birthday, but the first their families know of their fate comes a year later when a card arrives on their daughter's birthday, showing their child being tortured. The cards continue to arrive, year on year, getting progressively more horrifying until there is no doubt in the minds of the parents that their child is dead. As storylines go, it's difficult to get more horrific than this one, but the fact that I got quickly sucked into the narrative and stayed the course owes a massive amount to the quality of the writing as I certainly didn't stay on board because I liked any of the characters. Detective Constable Ash Henderson couldn't be described as likeable by anyone who'd spent more than five minutes in his company. He's a bent copper of the old school, happy to extort money to pay his debts, stand by while someone gets a good kicking and generally lie and cheat his way through an investigation. But for Ash this isn't any old murder investigation. This one is very personal indeed. Five years ago, Ash's daughter went missing, believed by everyone, including her mother and sister, to have run away from home. But Ash knows the truth, because every year since Rebecca's disappearance he's been receiving cards that show exactly what happened to his beloved daughter. He's kept the truth to himself as he knows that if the truth gets out, he'll be taken off the case and will lose his chance to get revenge on the person who tortured Rebecca to death. When the body of one of the Birthday Boy's victims is discovered, followed by the remains of more children, Ash knows that time is against him now and the stakes soon get considerably higher in his hunt for his daughter's killer. And so begins a fast and furious chase through the seamier side of Scotland. Ash is a man who can't stay out of trouble for long and his relationship with some very shady characters dogs him throughout the book. His working relationship with psychologist Alice McDonald, whom he refers to – not without some justification – as Dr McFruitLoop provides probably the only humour in an unremittingly dark but wholly compelling tale. This isn't a book for anyone who likes happy endings and prefers to see characters finding some sort of redemption through adversity, as most of them don't have a redeeming feature among them other than their ability to keep you turning page after page as fast as possible to see how the train-wreck of Ash Henderson's life and career play out. I have no idea whether or not McBride intends to bring his main character back in a subsequent story, but if he does I'll be fascinated to see how he can possibly top this story. § Linda Wilson is a writer, and retired solicitor, with an interest in archaeology and cave art, who now divides her time between England and France.
Reviewed by Linda Wilson, March 2012
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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