Birdman by Mo Hayder
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I don’t remember when I started to read the Jack Caffery stories by Mo Hayder what I do remember is thinking wow! What terrific dark and frightening stories these are, I like Mo Hayder’s style of story weaving and the reality is she is not afraid to engage in topics that many people would rather not read about and yes I know I have read most of them out of series order, I’m still blaming Maureen for that because in one day in May of this year when I was laid up, she brought home from the library “Ritual”, “Skin”, and “Gone” so I only have a couple more to read then I will get to writing down my thoughts on all the others at some time.
I like Mo Hayder’s writing and the reality of them shows that she is not worried about dealing with subject matter that many readers who would rather not read about, in truth, her narratives border on the horror genre.
“Birdman”, well I have finally gotten to read the first story of the Jack Caffery series and I now have a better understanding of how he thinks and why he is the type of policeman he is.
Anyway let’s get to the book;
Greenwich, south-east London. The Met’s crack murder squad, AMIP, is called out by nervous CID detectives to a grim discovery. Five bodies, all young women, all ritualistically murdered and dumped on wasteland near the Dome. As each post-mortem reveals a singular, horrific signature linking the victims, officers realize that they are on the trail of that most dangerous offender: a sexual serial killer.
Detective Inspector Jack Caffery – young, driven, unshockable – finds himself facing both hostility within the force and echoes of his past in this, his first case with AMIP. Haunted by the memory of a death long ago, he employs every weapon forensic science can offer for he knows it is only a matter of time before this chaotic, sadistic killer strikes again.
`Birdman’ is a well written novel that is really dark and disconcerting; the first few pages do not show any restrain when relating in detailed descriptions of how five women were murdered. Mo Hayder uses this intense opening as the hook and it works very well, the speed of the story is outstanding with extremely first-class developments, especially the final one which made me once again think of Jack Caffery in a different light, you will of course have to read the book to see what I mean.
Skilfully written, riveting, poignant, and gruesome, I think that like me you won’t be able to put this down until it’s finished and the story will stay with you for quite some time after.
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