Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsA tremendous read
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 13 February 2021
This book hit the ground running right from the prologue. The opening few pages, set in 1996, give us the theme, but at first we have no idea where it is going or what the connection is to the story that unfolds. We quickly switch to the present and we join DI Kim Stone and her team in the throws of closing an unpleasant child kidnapping case. As a reward for their work, the whole team are sent to a secretive research facility where there are plunged into the depths of another horrendous and frightening case.
This story is deep, black and intense. It is interspersed every few chapters with more thoughts from the character who we heard from in the prologue, and this becomes more interesting with each revelation. These little snippets are very clever and give no indication as to what they are about or what they refer to, and each one makes the reader take a different guess as to the person sharing their thoughts. As the story continues, we are introduced to characters that make you think they are not as they seem and throughout I found myself second guessing and going down many wrong avenues trying to work out both the killer and the motive. It isn’t until the very end, after a tense and fast paced struggle for survival that we learn the truth. Although I have to say that I did have my suspicions about this particular character, I didn’t actually work out exactly what had caused his actions until closer to the end.
It has been a while since I last read a Kim Stone novel but I am determined that the next one is not far off. I thoroughly enjoyed this well written and thought out novel.
