The Blurb:

“A serial killer who wants to watch you burn… 

The media call him The Burning Man, a brutal murderer who has beaten four young women to death, before setting their bodies ablaze in secluded areas of London’s parks. And now the fifth victim has been found… 

Maeve Kerrigan is an ambitious detective constable, keen to make her mark on the murder task force. Her male colleagues believe Maeve’s empathy makes her weak, but the more she learns about the latest victim, Rebecca Haworth, from her grieving friends and family, the more determined Maeve becomes to bring her murderer to justice. 

But how do you catch a killer no one has seen? And when so much of the evidence they leave behind has gone up in smoke?”

(source: Amazon.co.uk)

What I thought:

To be honest, when I picked this book up, I did think it was going to be a pretty run of the mill crime fic book about a serial killer but it turned out to be so much more than that. In fact, the serial killer (The Burning Man) is barely in the book at all. Instead, the story focuses on the “5th victim” of The Burning Man whom the police believe that may actually be a copycat crime and Detective Maeve Kerrigan is tasked with delving into victim Rebecca Haworth’s life in the hope of uncovering the killer.

The story is narrated by both Maeve and also by Louise, Rebecca’s best friend, who is used to give an insight into Rebecca’s life. While investigating, Maeve discovers that what seemed to be a very successful and idilyc existance on the outside was actually quite different for Rebecca in reality. Maeve finds herself as far back as Rebecca’s Oxford University days in trying to piece together what could have happened for her life to end up in a burning heap in a London park one winters night.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book; far more than I was expecting in fact, as it turned out to be more of a psychological thriller than a straight forward serial killer crime read. I found it fast-paced and I cared about the characters. If you are looking for a hard-boiled thrills-and-blood-spills book then you won’t find it here: The Burning Man is almost a side plot from what is really going on.

Fantastic read – highly recommended!

(source: this book was sent to me for review by Amazon Vine)