Adam Colclough lives and works in the West Midlands, he writes regularly for a number of websites, one day he will get round to writing a book for someone else to review.
Rebecca Carter and her daughter Moonflower are on the run in the American West, in their wake is a trail of bodies. Every victim is male and found with their throat torn out, the blood drained out of their bodies and their spinal cords severed. CCTV footage and the testimony of a handful of witnesses leads FBI Special Agent Marc Donner to believe one or both has killed time and again, stopping them means putting his career, reputation and maybe his life on the line.
If you think this sounds like a familiar story of an obsessive to the point of self-destruction investigator on the trail of a serial killer in America’s Badlands, think again. Stuart Neville has wrung the changes on a well-used set up in a truly original way.
Drawing on the activities of vigilantes who pose as children online to catch and expose abusers he asks pertinent questions about the moral compromises involved in seeking vengeance. Neville also takes the fantasy tropes of franchises built around vampires and other creatures of the night and turns them neatly on the head, maybe being one of the ‘undead’ isn’t quite so glamorous after all.
At its heart though this is a powerful story about the uncomfortably close relationship between love and obsession. Both have the power to make ordinary people into monsters, not just through their physical acts, equally harmful is the emotional violence they can inflict, usually on the very people they are trying to protect.
Anyone looking for an intelligent thriller with difficult questions and painfully realistic relationships at its heart, needs to put this book on their reading list.
