THE CUTTING

Portland, Maine. The body of a missing high school student is discovered in a scrap yard, her heart has been surgically removed. At the same time another young woman is abducted whilst out jogging by a sadist who keeps her drugged and blindfolded. Believing both crimes to be linked former NYPD detective Michael McCabe and his team must race against time to catch a killer with a chilling plan and no conscience.

Reading James Hayman’s debut novel is a little like riding a roller coaster where the controls have been sabotaged. His prose puts the reader at the nerve shredding centre of the action from first page to last, pulling no punches when it comes to describing the horrors of the crime scene or the autopsy room.

This could have been another exercise in gore for the sake of gore; thankfully it is nothing of the sort. In Michael McCabe Hayman has created a series character with a back story and family life, never mind a troubled conscience, convincing enough to repay more than one meeting.

He has also created one of the most unredeemable villains I have encountered in a thriller for a very long time. A monster for whom the rest of humanity exists to be used and then discarded on the way to achieving his goals with none of the faux charisma a lesser writer may have attached to such a character.

My Penguin copy of this book contains a teasing sample chapter from Hayman’s next novel, if it is anywhere as good as this one it will be well-worth waiting for.