Possible Spoilers
Set throughout London, this is a creepy thriller, highlighting the dangers of social media. The artist is brutal and stalks his victims using their online presence and through dating apps, to gain their trust before he takes them for his “art”, before showing them in public and on a video stream.
DI Archer is an interesting main character, with a dark history. We see small parts of her life with her boyfriend, her Grandad, who is suffering from the onset of dementia and there are mentions of her father’s murder. There is so much backstory to her that it would be interesting to see more stories with her to delve a bit deeper into her past. I also enjoyed her new friendship with her DS and thought they made a good partnership in this story, as well as with tech expert Klara, who Grace drafts in to help. There are some unlikeable characters within this, including the transphobic DI Hicks, and a bigoted Daily Mail reporter, but with little time is spent on them they’re not an important focus in the story.
The pace is quick with short chapters, and the tension build up is good, and I read it in just a couple of sittings. The killer’s identity is probably obvious to readers, and there is a level of suspending disbelief at the lengths the story goes, but with twists in the story, that didn’t really bother me. I loved the dark ending, and the terrifying images it left me with, and I wasn’t quite ready to leave the story behind.
Set throughout London, this is a creepy thriller, highlighting the dangers of social media. The artist is brutal and stalks his victims using their online presence and through dating apps, to gain their trust before he takes them for his “art”, before showing them in public and on a video stream.
DI Archer is an interesting main character, with a dark history. We see small parts of her life with her boyfriend, her Grandad, who is suffering from the onset of dementia and there are mentions of her father’s murder. There is so much backstory to her that it would be interesting to see more stories with her to delve a bit deeper into her past. I also enjoyed her new friendship with her DS and thought they made a good partnership in this story, as well as with tech expert Klara, who Grace drafts in to help. There are some unlikeable characters within this, including the transphobic DI Hicks, and a bigoted Daily Mail reporter, but with little time is spent on them they’re not an important focus in the story.
The pace is quick with short chapters, and the tension build up is good, and I read it in just a couple of sittings. The killer’s identity is probably obvious to readers, and there is a level of suspending disbelief at the lengths the story goes, but with twists in the story, that didn’t really bother me. I loved the dark ending, and the terrifying images it left me with, and I wasn’t quite ready to leave the story behind.