Hangman

My rating: * * * *

Goodreads Description

How do you catch a killer who's already dead?' Eighteen months have passed, but the scars the Ragdoll murders left behind remain. DCI Emily Baxter is summoned to a meeting with US Special Agents Elliot Curtis of the FBI and Damien Rouche of the CIA. There, she is presented with photographs of the latest copycat murder: a body contorted into a familiar pose, strung up impossibly on the other side of the world, the word BAIT carved deep into its chest. As the media pressure intensifies, Baxter is ordered to assist with the investigation and attend the scene of another murder to discover the same word scrawled across the victim, carved across the corpse of the killer - PUPPET. As the murders continue to grow in both spectacle and depravity on both sides of the Atlantic, the team helplessly play catch up. Their only hope: to work out who the 'BAIT' is intended for, how the 'PUPPETS' are chosen but, most importantly of all, who is holding the strings.

My Review

So Bookworms, this review is going to take on a slightly different format to usual. After recently reading an article about blog posts and how many people read them, and what they like and don't like about them, I noticed that the criticisms leveled at blogs and book reviews in general were that some people find review posts long-winded, too detailed, and bordering on boring. It seems that a number of people prefer punchier, short and to the point reviews. This would allow people to get a sense of the book quickly and easily, and would allow them to decide if the book would suit them without necessarily having to read a long review which goes into detail about all aspects of the story. And you know what? I actually tend to agree with this. When I read book reviews, I actually prefer one's that are short, punchy, to the point and give me just enough detail to entice me to read (or in some cases, not to read) the novel.

With this in mind, I've decided to try a new style for a while. So here goes, my review of Hangman...

What I liked

* Although this book is the sequel to the super popular, Ragdoll, this novel can easily be read as a stand alone.

* Detective Baxter. This fierce and fiery character brought an edge to the story that I really liked. She's hard, to the point, tough, a loner and someone who tends to see the worst in people. But she's interesting, and the people around her trust her. She's complicated.

* Action packed. From the get-go this book has action and it doesn't take long to draw you in.

* Fairly large body count, lots of blood and a fair amount of violence. But note that I didn't find this book specifically gruesome, there were no scenes that made me feel sick. But it's a crime novel / crime thriller after all and it had the right about of darkness to keep me entertained.

What I didn't like

* To really enjoy this novel you need to be able to suspend your disbelief. At times this story is somewhat far fetched...but hey, it's a fiction novel after all.

* Sometimes a little difficult to read and requires your full attention. I found that this wasn't the easiest of reads, and that doesn't mean that I found it difficult per se, but more that I found that I needed to concentrate when reading this story so that I didn't get lost.

Final thoughts

I really loved this novel and would recommend it to fans of the crime thriller genre.

My Rating: * * * *

Publication Date: April 2018 (South Africa)

Genre: Crime Fiction / Thriller

Format: Trade Paperback

Source: Review copy received from the publisher. Many thanks to author, Daniel Cole and Jonathan Ball SA for my copy. It was my pleasure to read and review this title.