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A young woman is found dead and mutilated, in a field outside Edinburgh. Five years earlier, another girl was found murdered with identical injuries. Back then, DI Jim Gallagher was in charge and the killer was never identified. Now, it's DI Rob Brennan's turn. But with the end of his marriage to face, his non-communicative daughter to deal with and intrusions into his investigation by both his new boss, Chief Superintendent Bernard "Benny" Hill and the failed DI Gallagher, he's finding his already desolate life even more difficult than usual. Meanwhile, Neil Henderson is out of jail and staying with one of his old girls, Angela Mickle, trying to make enough money off her to pay his debts to Shaky, an infamous loan shark who's looking to break Henderson's limbs to set an example to other debtors. Angela – hooked on heroin and barely able to apply makeup – isn't going to make the kind of money on the street that Henderson owes, but she does have a secret and he sees a way of using that secret to pay off his debt and leave Edinburgh for good. He is, unfortunately, unaware of the consequences of blackmailing a rapist, and a potential serial killer. There are happily married policemen, they do exist. DI Rob Brennan, however, is not one of them. He's a walking, talking cliché of the type seen in almost every Hollywood thriller, and sadly a large percentage of text in this book is given over to dragging the reader into Brennan's depression over and over again, into the mind of a man who hates everything and sees the worst in everyone. The only way through the quagmire of suicidal rhetoric is to skip huge swathes of narrative and just read the odd paragraph that deals with the plot, which is a shame because this could have been a decent novel. The plot is promising and might have been enticing if the readers had been made privy to the killer's thoughts, motives or even background. The hints at his character are scant and come too late to appreciate them. In fact, instead of any real insight into any of the supporting cast, we are bombarded with the inner monologue of a man who would be as much fun at a dinner party as E. coli. Make it through to the final scene and the only reward is a woefully rushed, unimaginative and predictable climax to the book, incredibly unsatisfying and slightly insulting. I haven't read the previous instalments in the series, and based on this I don't have the inclination ever to do so. Madeleine Marsh is an aspiring writer who lives in South West England. She helps run sci-fi conventions and loves modern cinema.
Reviewed by Madeleine Marsh, August 2012
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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