Eeny Meeny by M.J. Arlidge

This book started off so promisingly and in the proscribed way with a detailing of a Serial Killer's capture and ultimate desecration of their victim.  This killer is different though they have two people at once and only they can decide who can live or die.  Traces of the Saw films in the premise of having two people held captive and they have to battle each other for life.  Still, I can overlook that as at least these weren't strangers to each other so there is an added element of emotion to the crime.  Indeed the first crime is handled well and the writing is claustrophobic and tense sucking you in the depraved web of the killer's psyche.

Unfortunately, once you are past this bit the tale begins to wilt under a plethora of stale old tropes.  We have the ambitious policewoman who has been fast tracked to Detective Inspector who hates herself and has no time for anything but her job.  The "good copper" who is crippled by his broken marriage and subsequent turn to alcohol as an amelioration and crutch. Cue much mental eye-rolling when reading these sections.

The abductions also become much less intriguing and even verge on the downright silly in places.  Believability is not the key here, in fact a healthy suspension of belief is required to get more than halfway through this book.

Some of the peripheral characters are just downright unlikeable and fall in to the pit of being completely unbelievable as people.  The journalist and the psychotherapist are two such that have no redeeming characteristics whatsoever.  Unfortunately, they are both supposed to be strong women, like our intrepid DI Grace, but just come across as bitter and callous. 

The sidestep in to police corruption and mishandling of evidence and interview tapes is tedious and seems to have been thrown in to pad the book to a decent length.  Whilst I understand the need to undermine the head of the team to juxtapose the "old force" and it's mainly old boy's club feeling and the bright dawn of the "new force" which is inclusive it is handled clumsily.  Certainly if this is what you want to read then you would be far better picking up a book from Lynda La Plante's Jane Tennyson series.

Now you would think from the above that I would have only given this book 1 or 2 stars; yet I gave it 3.  The simple reason for this is that there are sparks of brilliance in this book.  You definitely don't know who could be possibly committing these atrocities and feel as clueless as the MIT investigating them.  The information is drip fed in such a way that you are forced to jump to the same conclusions as the officers and the final reveal is a nasty little twist in the tale.  It is the plot arc that makes the book, just a pity that the writing is very often not up to it.

I'm not entirely sure I would read any more of the Helen Grace series but I certainly won't write them, or their author, off yet.

**Review originally published January 7th, 2018**