John Parker is a Graduate-qualified English/Spanish Teacher, owner and director of CHAT ENGLISH, an English Language Centre in Avilés on the north coast of Spain . A voracious reader, he has particularly loved horror fiction for many years.
In this Jefferson Winter novel (set in Vancouver), our hero is out to discover the identity of the killer of a millionaire’s wife, dead in her own home, following the explosion of a bomb detonated by her seemingly unwitting husband.
It appears that some believe her husband was responsible but the method is too perfect and the lack of mistakes, uncanny; it was also the first in a series. Two other similar murders using the same modus operandi have been committed since then and Winter knows that tomorrow, August 5th, a fourth murder will be committed if he cannot identify “The Quiet Man”. With the help of an ex-cop called Laura Anderton, now a private detective in the employ of Nicholas Sobek, the husband of the first victim, Jefferson is in a race against time to stop a serial killer from adding to his victims.
Carol’s newest novel is, in my opinion, a step up from his previous effort, Call Me. There is plenty of suspense to keep you turning the pages in this well-plotted novel and the scenes where Winter and Anderton work on profiling the killer are particularly mesmerising. There are plenty of interesting characters, particularly Nicholas Sobek, whose obsession with finding the man who murdered his wife is fascinating, if slightly unnerving. If Carol continues to improve in his next novel, I will be delighted.
A definite thumbs-up.
