I have to be honest and say I tend to be a bit wary of modern British crime-writers. I love a good mystery, but for some reason I have the impression that there’s a lot of … what I call “Oi, Guv,” in my head in them.
You know – rebelling Against the System and Working too Hard and Having Troubles at Home because of it, and so, usually, I don’t read them, because I’m not a big fan of personal lives in crime stories. (I’m aware of how that sounds. Hush.)
However, I picked up Killing the Shadows at the library and decided to give it a shot last weekend, and I was pleased I did. I got an intelligent thriller with a solid plotline and characters that I could invest in on a personal and professional level because they had their shit together.
Which just shows, for me, that you don’t have to produce 500 pages of miseryguts lit to make a decent thriller.
Anyway, that’s enough of that mini-rant. On to the book itself.
Psychologist Fiona Cameron is just coming off the back of working a case with the Met, that ended up going badly and led to Fiona severing her relationship with the System.
However, she gets drawn back in when a killer begins targeting mystery writers, and her partner happens to be bestselling crime writer Kit Martin …
I’m not big on feelings in crime stories, like I say, but I liked Kit and Fiona – they’re a happy, successful couple and goshdarn, I like that.
Killing the Shadows taps along at a pretty good pace, with plenty of gruesomeness – actually, a bit more gruesomeness than I’m comfortable with, and it doesn’t normally doesn’t make me squeamish.
But it’s a good thriller with well-rounded characters and a who-dun-it that really does keep you guessing.
