I love serial killer thrillers and I also love London so a serial killer thriller set in London should have been perfect for me. However unfortunately it was not.
Let's look at the evidence to explore why.
Firstly, I couldn't get onboard with the characters. Most remained 2D and felt like concepts as opposed to fleshed out people. I had a real issue with the amount of tragic backstory for the lead detective; she has just save a big case involving a serial killer, she has also been promoted but having to work at the place her father worked despite what went on in his past . . . it was all too coincidental and felt like it was setting up for things in later books.
I think my main problem was this book felt like a book written by an author without any expert knowledge of what he was writing about. I like a book to have depth and while I don't need it to be written by a forensic pathologist or a retired detective, I don't want to feel they know more than I do. I never felt this. If you compare it to the books by Mark Billingham, there is a realness to the police procedures in his books - I didn't feel this here.
The killer was easy to spot, it followed the formulas and the tropes of the genre and the final confrontation was just as you would predict.
Overall this book brought nothing new to the genre. No new, intriguing characters, no new premise, no new twist. In regards to this, I am actually surprised, knowing how competitive the word of publishing is that it actually got published.
Saying all of that, I am intrigued by the author and would be interested in seeing his next book. He could be someone who grows as a writer and his characters also grow and things perhaps set up in this book end up paying off later on down the road.
Let's look at the evidence to explore why.
Firstly, I couldn't get onboard with the characters. Most remained 2D and felt like concepts as opposed to fleshed out people. I had a real issue with the amount of tragic backstory for the lead detective; she has just save a big case involving a serial killer, she has also been promoted but having to work at the place her father worked despite what went on in his past . . . it was all too coincidental and felt like it was setting up for things in later books.
I think my main problem was this book felt like a book written by an author without any expert knowledge of what he was writing about. I like a book to have depth and while I don't need it to be written by a forensic pathologist or a retired detective, I don't want to feel they know more than I do. I never felt this. If you compare it to the books by Mark Billingham, there is a realness to the police procedures in his books - I didn't feel this here.
The killer was easy to spot, it followed the formulas and the tropes of the genre and the final confrontation was just as you would predict.
Overall this book brought nothing new to the genre. No new, intriguing characters, no new premise, no new twist. In regards to this, I am actually surprised, knowing how competitive the word of publishing is that it actually got published.
Saying all of that, I am intrigued by the author and would be interested in seeing his next book. He could be someone who grows as a writer and his characters also grow and things perhaps set up in this book end up paying off later on down the road.