“To find this killer, she must confront the nightmares in her past”
- Book: The Killer’s Girl (Detective Morgan Brookes #2)
- Location: The Lake District
- Author: Helen Phifer
No! No! No! It can’t be over, I can’t possibly have reached the final page already!
I generally save my 5 star ratings for literary fiction, with many of the mainstream genres rating 4 stars as a high point. However for this story, it just has to be the full 5, without a doubt. This is book #2 in the DC Morgan Brookes series and whilst from a purely inquisitive perspective, starting with the first story might have fleshed out a few extra odd details about how we get to be where we are today, to be honest, this book works exceptionally well as a stand alone story, providing more than enough detailed background about the characters than I could ever have imagined, and definitely more than I needed to know sometimes!
If I give a little away and mention that the opening lines from Chapter One, are in effect a prologue, once you begin reading further, things should start slotting into place – maybe! But you do need to be good to get one over on this author!
From those gruesome opening lines which couldn’t fail to get my attention; the story opened up into one rollercoaster event after another which drew me right in and kept me glued to the pages; right until the explosive ending which had me reaching for book #3 – where is book #3 Helen? I need it now please, if not sooner!
Murder/Mystery, Police Procedural, Psychological Thriller? or in my personal opinion, probably a little of each. From whichever perspective you view this book, the facts remain the same. This multi-layered, well constructed storyline was intense, full of tension, rich in atmosphere and replete with some excellent research about so many of the issues touched upon in its pages. The powerful, fluid writing and short punchy chapters, kept the pace of the action on constant high alert throughout, whilst the descriptive dialogue, observational narrative and gripping, disturbing storytelling, had me right in the middle of the action, as a none too observant bystander, as I only managed to work out the final endgame a few seconds before everyone else did! Helen effortlessly and totally owned this plot from beginning to end, building it with complete authority and great confidence.
The principle characters of DS Ben Matthews and DC Morgan Brookes, each had a desperate intensity about them, which is going to go one of two ways in the following episodes. However they are both ‘damaged goods’, who come with the excess personal baggage of most fictional detectives, so it’s a tough call in which direction Helen will take their personal journey in the future, especially after you experience that bombshell ending to this episode and how it might affect their development as a working partnership. At first glance, the well developed team of detectives operating alongside Ben and Morgan, seemed as though they collaborated together quite well, forming a good unit who looked out for one another and always had each others’ backs. They were, on the whole, very supportive of Morgan, despite the fact she was a relative ‘newbie’ to the team and even though the entire manpower and resources of the department, had been called upon to close down what was so much a personal attack on her, leaving in its wake some devastating collateral damage and lives destroyed beyond repair. However, as events unfolded it turned out that all was not as it had seemed and maybe this small ‘family’ of co-workers needed to look closer to home to see who their real friends and allies were. Beware the enemy within!
The sins of the father are definitely visited upon the son!
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